


A Different Kind of Game

by WinterRose527



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:43:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11784366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterRose527/pseuds/WinterRose527
Summary: Robb Stark is a gentleman, and as such, who is he to turn away a damsel in distress?





	1. The Favor

 

_“Donnnn’t stop beliiiievin’ hold on to that feeeeeeeliiinyea”_

Robb Stark sat at the bar wondering exactly why he was here. Okay, he knew why, because Theon loved this place. To put it more honestly, Theon loved that every Thursday was rodeo night and the bar brought in the mechanical bull often kept in the back and more often than not pretty girls road the bull to roaring applause. Robb was never clapping. In fact, Robb never came here on Thursdays, or any other day of the week.

 

Somehow though, Theon had convinced him to come on the Friday evening before Christmas vacation. There had been a girl, obviously, someone named Myranda or something who was supposedly the new bartender. Anyway, Myranda apparently wasn’t working tonight, so Theon had just left him after getting a call from one of his regular hook-ups, Ros.

 

The scotch in his glass was good though, so he figured he would finish this one drink and then head home, maybe see if Jon wanted to catch a train to Winterfell tonight, rather than waiting for the one tomorrow. Sansa was there already, her finals having finished earlier than his, and Arya apparently had her first date so Robb was kind of _dying_ to go and he knew Jon would be too. He could feel his mouth watering thinking of his mom’s cooking.

 

He was about to text Jon when he caught a whiff of something, sweet and subtle and flowery, and turned to see what had to be the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. She had golden hair and bright green eyes and a nervous look on her face.

 

She smiled at him and said, “Hi um… you don’t know me, but could…could you be my boyfriend for five minutes?”

 

“Your-what? um.. I’m, what?” Robb sputtered out and he was afraid she was going to think he was mentally deficient, in truth he was starting to wonder himself.

 

The girl in question just smiled and bit her lip and then, with one quick glance to her side she took a deep breath and leaned in and just…kissed him.

 

She tasted a bit like gin and a lot like summer, though the winter winds blew outside, and her lips were soft as they closed around his. He had turned when she kissed him, so it was natural enough for him to pull her by her waist against him. He wasn’t entirely sure _what_ was happening but he wasn’t quite so foolish as to question it. Her fingertips were feather-light against his jaw but he could feel her spine through her sweater and he felt like he might burn a hole through it.

 

“El?” a confused voice cut in. If he wasn’t mistaken he could almost feel ‘El’ smile against his lips, so he thrummed his fingers against her, letting her know that he _knew_ and he kissed her once, twice more, as though he couldn’t bear to let her go _which wasn’t so much a lie anyway_ before parting from her.

 

“Oh! Harry… Margery… hey…” the girl he assumed was El said, and she sounded like she was coming out of a daze. _She’s either a theater major or…_

“Ella,” Margery said, and if Robb wasn’t mistaken she almost seemed proud, “You must introduce us to your -?”

 

“Boyfriend,” Robb said, hooking his arm around Ella’s waist, “Robb Stark, good to meet you.”

 

“Boyfriend?” Ella said turning to him with a teasing lilt in her voice. _I want to kiss that smirk off of you._ “Hmm… not sure you deserve _that_ title just yet…” she said and reached up and kissed his cheek. _Oh she’s good and I think I like this game._

“Well, clearly, we’ve got some things to discuss…” Robb said conspiratorially to Margery who let out a tinkling little laugh.

 

The boy who’d been addressed as Harry just stood there with a slack jaw and Robb couldn’t help but smirk at him. Whoever he was, he had clearly been a fool after all.

 

“Yes that’s right…let’s um.. go discuss, shall we?” Ella asked him, and the way she said it made it very clear that it would not be a verbal discussion.

 

“Have a good night guys,” Robb said getting up in one fluid motion, his eyes on hers, completely ignoring the couple in front of him.

 

He offered her his hand and when they got to the coat rack he helped her into designer parka, which he only knew was designer because Sansa had the same one, before going out into the night air.

 

When the door closed behind them, the large structure muffling the sound from inside, he just stood there.

 

“So…thanks…” she said, and the girl who had just been so bold a moment before now seemed shy.

 

“Uh… anytime,” Robb said, and meant it. “That guy… he didn’t do anything, he didn’t like hurt you or anything?”

 

She looked up at him, her wide green eyes appraising him, but she smiled easily, “No. He just… well I mean he kind of cheated on me. Like… a lot. I mean, nearly an _impressive_ amount. And…anyway… I just… I’m not one of those girls that _needs_ a boyfriend or anything. I just… couldn’t stand his…”

 

“Stupid fucking face?” Robb asked.

 

The girl giggled windchimes that brought a smile to his face. “An apt description. You’re very astute, Robb Stark, anyone ever tell you that?”

 

“It doesn’t take a genius to know he’d have to be an idiot to cheat on you,” he says earnestly.

 

He isn’t sure if it’s the comment or the cold that causes the roses to bloom on her cheeks but either way it’s got to be the prettiest sight he’s ever seen.

 

“Well anyway…” she says, “I’ve got a flight to pack for. Maybe I’ll see you next year, _boyfriend._ ”

 

He’s about to ask her for her full name or her number or, really, anything just to keep talking to her but she’s already walking away and something tells him not to ruin it. Something also told him he’d be coming back to this bar _a lot_ next semester.


	2. A second opinion

 

 

“You _didn’t_ ,” her cousin and roommate squealed when Myrcella returned to their dorm.

 

“I mean, I did. I super did,” Myrcella said with a mischievous smile.

 

“Okay. So. You are _telling_ me that you went out on a date with someone…what was his name again?”

 

“Dickon.” Myrcella said seriously and Shireen nodded solemnly before they both let out a laugh.

 

“Right, okay so… Dickon was…?”

 

“Dull. I mean… no, Shireen, I don’t think you’re quite _grasping_ this, he told a twenty minute story about getting a new key to his mailbox. And he described it as… _unbelievable_. The only _unbelievable_ thing about it was that I didn’t die of boredom while listening to it.”

 

Shireen laughed as she threw a couple of books into her already overstuffed suitcase.

 

“Okay so you went out with…him… and then somehow ended up kissing _the sexiest man in the world_? Which, okay… I mean… really? At Vale University? Wouldn’t you think the sexiest man in the world would be like…modeling in Highgarden or something?” Shireen asked, digressing as she so often did.

 

“Robb would never _model_ ,” Myrcella says, though really, how would she know?, “And anyway so Dickon had just left and I was about to grab my coat when I saw Harry walk in with Margery…”

 

“That girl is making her way through this school like she’s on a _deadline_ or something,” Shireen said and Myrcella bit her cheek to keep from laughing. Because really, she was very anti-slut shaming. She just also happened to be anti-friends-who-fucked-her-cheating-ex-boyfriend.

 

“ _Anyway_ , I saw them and I just… I don’t know, I panicked! I mean…”

 

“You are Myrcella Penelope Baratheon. You _don’t_ panic.”

 

“I know, but I _did._ So anyway I saw them and I panicked and then… I don’t know there was this guy sitting at the bar and he was, seriously Shireen I mean… can I just... okay. So…”

 

“YUM” Shireen said. “Holy shit, is this him El?”

 

Shireen turned the phone to her and there was that couple days scruff covering that square jaw, his lips, those kissable lips were pulled into a grin and his blue eyes were sparkling with mischief. _Oh yes, that’s him._ She nodded.

 

“I quite literally need no other explanation. You could tell me that you were walking through the bar and just kissed him because you wanted to and I wouldn’t question it.”

 

“Your loyalty to handsome men is inspiring. Truly.”

 

“Alright, anyway. So it turns out that The Future Mr. Shireen Baratheon is a good kisser too?”

 

“Oh you have no idea. I mean… he just.. and I… and. Um...”

 

“Do you need a minute alone?”

 

Myrcella decided that the only response needed to that question was a swift pillow to the face.

 

***

 

“You really cannot resist a damsel in distress, can you?” Jon asked him as the train neared Winterfell.

 

“Okay, like you’re any better, Mister Hero Complex,” Robb said pointedly. _I mean, aren’t you the guy who punched Ramsay in the face when he told Sansa she looked fat one day? Even I was going to let her handle that one on her own and I’m her brother._

“We aren’t talking about me, Robbert,” Jon said.

 

“Fine. Yes, okay, I like to help a girl out where I can. I mean… but its… I mean… I just…”

 

“Dude, are you sure you’re an English major?” Jon asked with a smirk. Robb felt the only response needed to that question was a punch in the arm.

 

“You don’t get it. This girl was like…”

 

“Hot?”

 

“No. I mean. Well fine, yes, of course she was hot. But she was more than that she was… she was like sunshine…”

 

Jon nodded solemnly for a moment, as though it made a lot of sense before breaking into laughter.

 

“Whatever, dude. This girl was special.”

 

“I’m sure you’d say that about any girl that kissed you within the first 30 seconds of meeting you.”

 

“Maybe you’re right,” Robb said. It had been after all, an entire semester since him and Jeyne had broken up and he hadn’t been with anyone since. _Maybe it was just the excitement of it all._

 

But as he laid his head against the cold window of the train, and thought about her wind chime laugh and the feel of her waist in his hands, he didn’t think it was.


	3. Never would until you do

“Jon!” a pixie of a girl shouted and suddenly she was in his arms and he was _home_.

 

“Arya Underfoot!” he said as he swung her about.

 

Robb had about seventeen Starks around him (okay, four, but every Stark counted for at least four normal people when it came to hugs) and all of a sudden everyone was talking at once.

 

He set Arya down and to his dismay, she was dressed in tight black jeans, with a silvery tank top and kohl-lined eyes.

 

“Arya?” Jon asked and his tone made Robb turn.

 

“Go wash your face, little one,” he said.

 

“Maybe you could say _hello_ first before you go all agro-brother?” Arya asked him and he smiled and pulled her into his arms.

 

“Hellooo darling sister. Now, go wash your face.”

 

Ned came up behind them and clasped them both on the shoulder, “Thank god you guys are home. I have been severely overruled.”

 

Cat smirked at him, “You guys are being so silly about this, she’s eighteen.”

 

“Yeah, and?” Robb and Jon asked.

 

“ _And?_ I was younger than her when I started dating,” the prettiest Stark of all said calmly as she entered the room.

 

 

“What exactly about that is supposed to make me feel any better?” Robb asked pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers as though long suffering. Sansa stuck her tongue out at him.

 

The conversation would have continued but the doorbell rang and five dogs went to greet it.

 

***

 

 _Poor guy_ Sansa thought as Gendry shifted nervously in the foyer. He was after all, surrounded by seven Starks, a Snow, and five eager dogs.

 

He had just greeted her parents in what Sansa thought was a highly acceptable fashion and she was hoping the young couple could get out of here as quickly as possible. Clearly Gendry felt the same way.

 

“Hey, uh, Arya,” he said as Arya shoved in front of her brothers, even little Rickon had posted in front of her, “You look great.”

 

 _So that’s what she looks like when she blushes_ , Sansa thought to herself as Arya, her normally formidable and slightly terrifying sister, looked up sweetly and said, “Thanks.”

 

“So Gendry, want a beer?” Robb asked, and every woman in the room turned to glare at him. Even Nymeria and Lady.

 

“Oh,” Gendry says his eyes darting nervously, “No thank you, I mean, I’m driving.”

 

“Nonsense,” Jon said, “We just got home. You wouldn’t rob us of a chance to catch-up with Arya would you? Let’s make a night of it.”

 

Sansa looked between Robb and Jon who had clearly made this plan on the train and narrowed her eyes. _No one quite as clever as an overprotective brother._

“No – really let’s just let them have their date-“ Sansa started.

 

“Come on, dove,” Robb said with that smirk of his, the one that told her there would be no fighting this one, “Let’s show these kids a good time, huh? Let’s go, Waters, I’m pouring,” he said and starting walking towards the kitchen in a way that really didn’t allow Gendry _not_ to follow him.

 

“Sansa,” Arya said, her doe eyes even wider in her anger.

 

“It’ll be fine,” Sansa tried to say reassuringly.

 

It didn’t help that they heard from the kitchen, “Do you hunt Gendry? Jon and I _love_ hunting.”

 

“Fucking idiots,” Arya said with a huff.

 

“Fucking idiots who love you,” Sansa said, dragging her little sister towards the boys.

***

 

 _Okay so I guess he’s kind of cool,_ Robb thought as Gendry sunk the game cup.

 

“This is _bullshit_ ,” Arya said, “Sansa’s coordination is limited to ballet and horseback riding. She literally has the worst hand-eye that I’ve _ever_ seen.”

 

“Hey! No friendly fire!” Sansa complained causing Robb to grin.

 

“Whatever, switch partners. Gendry is _my_ date after all,” Arya said coming to their side of the table.

 

“But…the dream team…” Robb said teasingly.

 

“The dream team is dead. RIP Robbry. Get your ass over here spoil sport,” Sansa said making Robb chuckle. She had lost a few games and had had more than her fair share of vodka.

 

When he got over to her she leaned up and whispered in his ear, “They are so cute!”

 

“They are _not_ ” Robb said, though they kind of were. Arya was emphatically smacking Gendry on the back as he hopped up and down as though warming up, and he couldn’t remember ever seeing his little sister so at ease with someone other than his family or Jon, who might as well have been family.

 

He and Sansa shot first, and true to Arya’s word, Sansa was _terrible_.

 

“The point is to get it _in_ the cup,” Jon said to her teasingly.

 

“I was close!” she said, lying and shoving him playfully.

 

“Close only counts in horse grenades,” Gendry said, quoting one of Robb’s favorite lines from Parks & Rec.

 

“And you weren’t close. Just for the record,” Jon said with a cheeky grin.

 

“I swear its like you’ve all decided to gang up on me tonight,” Sansa said as she took a shot then poured another and shoved it into Jon’s hand. He grinned at her and threw it back.

 

“You two keep this up, you won’t be waking up alone tomorrow,” Arya warned.

 

Robb smirked, _as if those two would ever get together._

He looked over at them and wondered how much they’d had to drink, because they were rather flushed.

 

***

 

 _Jesus I’ve had too much to drink,_ Jon thought as he finished brushing his teeth and shut out the bathroom light, walking into the guest room in that was all but reserved for him at Winterfell. There was a Stark in his bed.

 

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, she had nearly given him a heart attack.

 

“What do you _think_ I’m doing here?” she asked him challengingly.

 

“Sansa…” he said with a groan.

 

“Jon…” she said mimicking his tone.

 

“We said once we got here, this was going to stop,” he said. _And we both knew it was a lie._

“I can go,” she said, lifting up the covers and revealing her lacy black lingerie as she moved to get up.

 

“No you fucking can’t,” he said, his last vestige of self-restraint gone, not that he had much to begin with, and he pounced on the bed. He grabbed her and pulled her into his lap. _Fuck, you smell like lemon and you feel like heaven._

“You were mean to me tonight,” she says, a pout on those full lips, “and very gruff,” she says, as they turn into a sly smirk.

 

“We said we don’t want anyone finding out about this, least of all Robb, your brother and my _best friend_ ,” he said as he tilted her head back, “besides,” kissing her neck, “you love it when I’m gruff.”

 

“Cocky, much?” she asks him.

 

“ _Very_ ,” he says, pressing his erection against her.

 

“Jon…” she breathed and it was his favorite sound in the whole world.

 

He shoved her down on the bed to her protest, she had been grinding against him after all.

 

“Hmm…it’s Christmas time, are you my present?” he asks her, leaning down and nipping her stomach. His hand cups her breast through the black lace, “I love the wrapping paper.”

 

“What’s inside is better,” she says breathlessly, and a bit smugly.

 

“Trust me, Sansa, you don’t have to tell _me_ that,” he said, tearing down her panties and pressing his mouth to her hot, wet cunt. “Oh _fuck,_ you are so ready for me.”

 

Nothing in the world could compare to this, to Sansa splayed out before him, his head in her cunt and her hands in his hair. He licked his way up her entrance, before focusing his tongue on that little pearl, pressing against it. He reached up with one hand to rub her breast while the other rubbed her entrance, pushing a finger inside of her and pumping in the slow rhythm he knew would drive her wild.

 

“Oh god,” Sansa said.

 

“I’m the one about to make you cum, Sansa, say _my_ name,” he said because she loved it when he ordered her around in bed.

 

“Jon, fuck, right – right there, oh Jon,” she said as he sucked on her pearl, two fingers moving in and out of her in the same fashion he intended another part of himself to be doing shortly.

 

“That’s it baby, you’re so close I can feel it, come for me, come for me beauty,” he said and he was shocked, even now, that she followed his world and came with a delicate little cry.

 

He didn’t give her time to recover, he flipped her over, yanking his sweatpants down and sinking his already throbbing cock into her.

 

“ _Fuuuck”_ she cried out, and for a brief terrifying moment he was afraid he had hurt her, but then she starts pressing back against him and turns to look at him, “Just like that, oh fuck I love it when you take me like this.”

 

He gripped her hips hard, too hard, he was sure to leave marks, “Jesus Christ, Sansa,” he cried out in desperation because she was too much. She had always been too much and he was helpless.

 

She let out a moan, and he was comforted that she was just as helpless against him, as unbelievable as that was, and he set a steady pace.

 

“Fuck I love being inside you,” he said, talking her through it the way she liked. “Your cunt is my favorite place in the entire fucking world.”

 

“Jon! That’s _foul_ ,” she said in an admonishment but he could feel her clench around him.

 

“So are you, baby. Sneaking into your older brother’s best friend’s room because you couldn’t go a night without this. Isn’t that right Sansa?” he asked her, rolling his hips.

 

“Yes…fuck I needed it.” She says pressing back against him.

 

“What did you need Sansa? Tell me.”

 

“I, fuck, Jon…I needed your cock, I needed this, please, please I’m about to cum.”

 

“I _know_ ,” he said gruffly and brought his hand around her so he could strum her, knowing it would drive her over the edge, because he couldn’t last much longer.

 

“ _Joo-on_ ,” she said as she came. His name on her lips pulled him over with her.

 

“Fuck, Sansa, fuck I fucking love you,” he said, nearly blacking out as he came.

 

He collapsed on the bed, ready to pass out and tried to pull her to him.

 

To his surprise she pushed him off of her and got up, searching for her panties.

 

“Sansa?” he asked.

 

“You LOVE me?” she asked as if it was the worst thing in the world.

 

 _Fuck, did I say that? Shit. Not the way I was supposed to tell her that._ “Um.. well…I…”

 

“You are an IDIOT Jon Snow,” with that she stalks out of the room.

 

_Jon Snow, turning lemons into shit since 1996._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I'm totally Jonsa trash... 
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> p.s. later chapters will explain how they got started


	4. I'll tell you what I want

 

Now that she was back on campus, Myrcella felt like she could breathe again. _Okay, so that’s a tad dramatic_ , but after two weeks with her mother she really felt like she had earned a bit of theatricality.

 

It had been amazing spending time with Tommen though. It was the longest amount of time they’d ever spent apart and she lost hours catching up with him, their conversations spanning days rather than minutes.

 

Joffrey had been thankfully on holiday in Dorne with his new girlfriend so she had been spared him.

 

Still though, the moment she stepped back on the snowy campus she felt happy. And it only had a _little_ bit to do with possibly running into a certain Robb Stark again.

 

Her class schedule was different this semester, and she had just finished her _Emerging Nations_ class and was headed into her literature class, which was going to focus on Medieval plays and sonnets.

 

Myrcella Baratheon was, by all accounts, a front row student. She was also notoriously early. So that is why when she wandered in to the large lecture hall, there wasn’t a soul around. She took off her large parka, draping it on the seat next to her and pulled out her laptop. She took a casual sip of her latte and looked at the clock. _Any minute now._

The rest of the class started filing in, and she smiled at a few familiar faces. Only one boy, a heavy set one with kind eyes and a nervous face asked if she minded if he sat next to her and she shook her head, smiling at him encouragingly. His answering smile lit up his whole face.

 

“Ah, there is nothing _quite_ like the eager faces of the damned,” a large bald professor said as he came in. He was dressed in Eastern garb and moved his feet in almost annoyingly small steps, but he was one of the highest rated professors on campus so Myrcella poised herself to type every word. “Class, I am Professor Varys and this is _A Song of Time Past_. The university notes this as a literature class and that is because the rigidity of our education system precludes them from doing otherwise. However, this will not just be a class where you read a poem and tell me how it makes you feel, because, to be quite honest, I couldn’t really care less how you _feel_. We have a drama department and a health office for that. We will study the history, socio-politics, religion, and literature of the time period and we will discover how those people _felt_. If any of you are frightened by public speaking I suggest you leave.”

 

Just then, someone barged in the class and Myrcella looked up just in time to see who it was. _He’s in this class!_

“Ah yes, class, this is Robb Stark, my slave, ahem, I mean my t.a. He will be around to answer any questions I find boring and will be the unfortunate soul grading all of your papers. Robb say something.”

 

Just then Robb looks up to address the class and his eyes settle on her. “Oh shit,” he says, making the class nervously.

 

“Ah yes, and this eloquence is why he was chosen. Now let’s begin. The year was 1532, and the political climate was… uneasy.”

 

_I can relate._

***

 

“It’s not funny!” Robb said to Jon and Theon as they sat at The Grind, the on-campus coffee shop.

 

This protestation served only to make Jon and Theon laugh harder.

 

“This is all _your_ fault, you know,” Robb said to Theon.

 

“There will never be a time when I don’t want to take credit for your discomfort, Stark,” Theon said with a shit eating grin.

 

“So now she’s what? Your student?” Jon asked him, trying to be serious.

 

“Oh that is hot! You should get her a plaid skirt and –“

 

“Shut the fuck up Greyjoy!” Robb said, trying very hard not to picture the mysterious Ella in a plaid skirt. Trying very, very hard.

 

“Okay, okay,” Jon said, though a little bit of green tea spurted out of his mouth when Theon started singing _Little girl from Cherry Lane, how did you get so bold?_

“Robb?” a girlish lilt asked from behind him.

 

“Hey Sunshine,” Jon and Theon said in tandem and Robb closed his eyes. _Fuck. And fuck Jon! Of course he told him I said that._

“Um, hello…” she said to them as Robb turned around.

 

“Ella…” he said with a nervous smile.

 

“Can we talk for a second?” she asked him, and then clearly noticed the obscene stares Jon and Theon were directing at her so she said, “About the um…syllabus?”

 

 _“Teacher, teacher”_ Theon intoned and must have gotten a swift kick to the shin from Jon because he moaned in agony.

 

“Yeah, sure,” he said standing up. _Okay seriously? Yoga pants? Fucking hell._

Once they got a fair distance away she said formally, “Well, I’m Myrcella Baratheon. It’s nice to meet you…officially,” and held out her hand.

 

He took it, trying very hard to ignore the jolt he felt when their hands touched, and said, “Robb Stark, and you too.”

 

“Anyway um, I can transfer out of the class… I can always take it next year and –“

 

“No!” he said and was surprised by the vehemence of his response. “Don’t do that. I uh… I mean, so what, we dated for like five minutes…” he said in an effort to make it less awkward and to his pleasure, she laughed, “It doesn’t have to be a thing.”

 

Her laughter stopped then and she nodded once, “Okay, then. See you in class, Mr. Stark.”

 

She really is like sunshine, because she takes all the warmth with her when she goes.

 

***

 

“Um… are you okay?” a kind voice asked her as she stomped out the rest of a cigarette.

 

Usually Sansa would be weirded out by a stranger coming up to her and asking that, but she was after all crying, and the girl had the kind of face you could just trust.

 

“No, I don’t even smoke… I just thought… no,” she says and offers the girl a sad smile.

 

“Something tells me there is a boy…or maybe a girl involved in this?” the girl asks with a smile of her own.

 

“A boy.” Sansa says. _A broody, protective, sexy, mother-may-I dreamboat of a boy._ “But it’s me. I’m the ass.”

 

The girl sighs, “Well that makes it a bit easier, doesn’t it? All you have to do is make him forgive you, right? Something tells me _you_ don’t have any trouble getting guys to do what you want them to do.”

 

_Not usually, no. But Jon is different. Jon is stubborn. Jon never does anything he doesn’t want to do._

“I guess so…” Sansa says and to her horror starts to cry again.

 

The girl looks at her kindly and tentatively, before giving her a light hug. “Vodka first. Plan later.”

 

“Its 11 am…” Sansa said.

 

“Tonight. Come out with my cousin and I. She’s a hoot, and she’s the _best_ at making plans. She’s got that whole _beautiful and clever_ thing down. I’d hate the bitch if I didn’t love her so damn much.”

 

Sansa giggled. This girl was something else.

 

“That sounds fun. I’m Sansa, by the way.”

 

“Shireen.”

 

***

 

By the time Myrcella got back to the dorm, Spice Girls was blaring from the speakers. _So it’s going to be one of those nights_ , she thought excitedly.

 

She kicked open the door and sang, “I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want!”

 

“Ellabell!” Shireen shouted excitedly. She was applying eyeliner to a startlingly pretty girl with long red hair and legs to kill for.

 

“Shmy!” Myrcella returned. Tommen had used to combine ‘Shireen’ with ‘Mine’ as a toddler because he was so enamored with her.

 

“This is Sansa, and this Ellabell,” Shireen said, making the introductions.

 

“Well actually I’m –“

 

“Your name is Ellabell and forthwith you shall be known as Ellabell,” Shireen said solemnly.

 

“Have you been into the whiskey again?” Myrcella asked with a smile.

 

“Vodka, my fault,” Sansa said with an abashed grin.

 

“You can make it up to me by pouring me one?” Myrcella asked hopefully.

 

“Attagirl,” Shireen said as she started throwing random articles of clothing at Myrcella.

 

“So you’ll never guess who my new T.A. is…” Myrcella said.

 

“Bono.”

 

“Definitely Bono. His touring schedule was getting to him so…”

 

“Don’t tell me it’s the Future Mr. Shireen Baratheon.”

 

“One in the same…”

 

“What’s this?” Sansa asked curiously as she picked a dress out of the pile Shireen had thrown at her and handed it to Myrcella.

 

“Girl meets boy. Girl kisses boy. Boy turns out to be T.A.” Myrcella offered the spark notes.

 

“Ohhh sexy,” Sansa said devilishly, clinking her shot glass against Myrcella’s. Myrcella knocked hers back.

 

“Or problematic. He basically looked at me like I was… I don’t know… a fourth grader,” Myrcella said with a sigh as she took off her sweater and jeans, pulling the dress on.

 

“Okay, well whoever he is, he’s an idiot. But he’s also a college student right? So maybe he’ll be there tonight. Let’s see if we can’t smarten him up? And failing that, my brother will kick his ass.”


	5. You look fine

“Chug, chug, chug!” was being shouted from every corner of the oversized student house.

 

Despite himself, Robb joined in, as Theon and one of the Karstarks swigged from a 40.

 

It was a good party, the first one of the new semester and Robb had been coming to parties at this particular house since the first week of his freshman year. It was the unofficial rugby house, and as the now captain, he was all too familiar with the parties here. He had refused to live here though, because of how familiar he was, and tried to keep his time to parties and team meetings.

 

There was a hysteria in the atmosphere tonight, the second semester seniors were vibrating with the knowledge that this was _it_ , that the next five months were their last chance to fuck up their chances of becoming the future leaders of tomorrow. And they were giving it their all.

 

Robb felt a rush of winter air and turned as he heard another guy, an Umber, saying, “Well _hells bells_ boys let the games begin.”

 

Robb followed his gaze to the foyer where his little sister, in a dress he _never_ would have let her out of the house in, was standing with her arm wrapped around a laughing Myrcella Baratheon.

 

She herself was wearing a black turtleneck mini dress that swung just so, that you couldn’t really look at her _without_ wondering what exactly she had on underneath. She met his eye and despite the startled expression in her green ones, she smirked as Theon let out a whooping laugh.

 

“Robberaaaannn won’t you take my haaaaand!” Sansa shout-sang once she saw him and now the smirk died from Myrcella’s lips.

 

“Sansa Stark what have you brought us?” Theon asked.

 

“I’ve brought you _squat_ , Greyjoy. I’m still not over poor Jeyne Poole’s broken heart, you stay away! Shoo!” Sansa said, straightening up with her hands on her hips. To Robb’s delight, Theon actually looked chagrined (Sansa was the only one who could shame him) and simply nodded as though that made sense, even as he stared at the girls other companion, a pretty brunette with a scar on her left cheek that somehow made the rest of her look _more_ beautiful.

 

“Sunshine!” Jon said with a smile, turning the corner and seeing Myrcella, as though they were old friends.

 

“Why do you guys keep calling me that?” Myrcella asked him curiously.

 

“Keep?” Sansa asked in confusion, though she seemed to glare at Jon.

 

“What the _fuck_ is happening?” the brunette said, echoing Robb’s sentiments.

 

It’s Myrcella who straightens up and says, “First, we drink. You pouring, _boyfriend?_ ”

 

“This way is gin,” Robb says, gesturing to the bar in the living room. _I never liked gin until I tasted it on your lips._

“Then that is the way I’m going,” Myrcella said, striding right through the gawking upper classman (I mean _seriously that dress_ ) and turning back, “Who’s coming?”

 

“Wait for me Ellabelle,” the brunette said following her and taking Sansa’s hand to bring her with them. As Sansa’s walking by she gives him _that_ look. The _seriously, you thought you could make that yellow light_ look, the _Mom is going to straight up murder you when she sees what you did to her peonies_ look, the one that told him he was a fucking idiot.

 

Feeling at a loss and trusting only one person to sort it out, he said, “Wait for me, Dove.”

 

***

 

“Okay, okay, so let me get this straight,” Sansa said with a giggle, because _seriously what were the chances_. “You walked up to Robb here,” she said, slinging an arm around her favorite brother, “And asked him to pretend to be your boyfriend… and _then_ you both found out that he’s your T.A.”

 

Myrcella, or Ella as Sansa thought of her, laughed and shook her head, “Yep. Because why wouldn’t that happen?”

 

“Just for the record, Robb Stark,” Shireen said, poking her brother in the chest (she’d had quite a bit before the girls had left the dorm), “Pretend or _otherwise_ you’d be lucky to be her boyfriend.”

 

“Shireen!” Ella said with a horrified laugh, pulling her cousin to her and clasping a hand over her mouth and looking at her appraisingly, “I dare say you are silly drunk, verging on _destructive_ drunk.”

 

Sansa looked at Robb, because whatever kind of drunk she was, the girl had a point. Robb would be lucky to date Ella. She was fun and clever and sweet and so beautiful you could almost hate her. He looked at her in that Robb way of his that, _I know, I know just don’t tell Mom_ look, that _What the hell have I done look_ that always made her want to help him.

 

“Well I am neither silly drunk nor destructive drunk and I’m not sure I’ll be satisfied until I’m at least one of them, so I’m heading back to the bar. Anyone want anything?” Ella asked.

 

“Me!” Jon and Shireen both shouted.

 

Sansa gave Robb a look, because really _wasn’t it so obvious what the next move was_ and because he wasn’t a complete moron he said, “Um…let me help you,” he said and guided Ella through the party, the other guys giving them a wide berth because any girl who was with Robb was widely considered through campus to be untouchable.

 

“Shireen?” a girl asked.

 

“Lizzy, hey!” Shireen said and walked away to go greet her friend. This, unfortunately, left Sansa and Jon alone.

 

“San-“

 

“You love me?”

 

“Okay so there’s just not going to be any easing into okay…”

 

“We spent the entire holidays together, _Jonathan_ , there is nothing to catch up on.”

 

“Right, fuck. Okay. Well… so… what I said…”

 

“That you love me.”

 

“Right. I just… fuck, San can you blame me?”

 

“Yes I _can_ blame you. We said when we started this that it was just… _sex”_ she whisper shouts at him.

 

“Well, yeah I mean… but I thought that we were just kind of you know, saying that to ease into it…” Jon said and looked at her with those grey eyes of his. The ones that seemed to see into her very soul, and always had.

 

“Jon…” she pleaded. Because really they had said it less as a promise and more as a defense. They’d woken up that first morning, haphazardly searching for their clothes and they’d said it wasn’t that big a deal, that it was just sex. But that had been when it was going to just be that one time. When they could blame it on the booze and their emotions, when it all seemed to stoppable.

 

“You love me too,” he says, and all of the stuttering and the hesitation is gone now. He says it like it’s the truest thing he’s ever known.

 

“Well that’s a hell of a statement,” because, really, _no one_ told Sansa Stark what she felt about anything.

 

“You do. And one of these days you’re going to realize it. I’m the guy for you, Sansa Stark. Always have been, always will be.”

 

***

 

“I cannot believe you came here with my sister,” Robb says to her as they gather the drinks.

 

“It’s not like that was _planned_ you know, but seriously, Sansa Stark has got to be the single coolest girl on the planet,” Myrcella says truthfully.

 

Robb sighs, “Yeah, she is. She doesn’t usually warm to people the way she has with you and Shireen though. What did you do to her?”

 

“Plied her with vodka and Spice Girls,” Myrcella says truthfully.

 

“Classic,” Robb says as though it makes complete sense.

 

“So professor…” Myrcella starts with a grin.

 

“I’m not a professor…” Robb says and she can tell something had clicked in his mind as though just remembering it.

 

“So _professor_ ,” she says with a smile, “I’m sorry I asked you to be my boyfriend for five minutes.”

 

“I’m not,” he says with a shake of his head.

 

“You’re not?” she asked, trying to keep the hope out of her voice.

 

“Shireen isn’t wrong. I’d be lucky to be your real or pretend boyfriend for any length of time. Anyone would be.”

 

“Oh.” _Well then._

 

“But… with me being your T.A…” he said, as though he was used to telling stupid little girls that he couldn’t be with them.

 

“I get it,” she said, jutting her chin forward, because Myrcella Baratheon was many things but a _stupid little girl_ was not one of them.

 

“Jesus you’re proud! I’m not saying this as a brush off. Fuck, Myrcella _look_ at you. I just… can we be friends?” he asked, running his hands through those reddish brown curls that she wanted to feel between her fingertips.

 

“You want to be my friend?” she asked him with a small smile.

 

“Well, yeah. As long as you promise me no vodka and Spice Girls.”

 

“Oh professor, I could never make a promise such as that.”

 

“Very well, just lay off all that professor stuff.”

 

“Yes, professor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'professor' stuff comes from my favorite old movie. Points to whoever guesses/knows what it is!
> 
> Let me know what you think...


	6. It can't, but it did

 

_S: Watcha up to?_

_J: New phone, who dis?_

_S: Seriously, Jon?_

_J: Do you have anything you’d like to tell me?_

_S: I’m not wearing any panties…_

_J: Well don’t sit on any cold benches._

_S: Jon!_

_J: Yes?_

_S: Come over…_

_J: As?_

_S: As soon as you can._

_J: No, what would I be coming over as? Your friend? Your boyfriend?_

_S: Why are you doing this?_

_J: Because I love you and it’s annoying that that seems to annoy you._

_S: Fine, I guess I’ll text my back-up._

_J: Don’t you fucking dare._

_J: Sansa?_

_J: Sansa I’ve called you three times. ANSWER YOUR PHONE._

_J: I’ll bring you lemon bars…_

_J: Fine. Goodnight._

_***_

_M: Hey professor, I have a question on the homework._

_R: No you don’t._

_M: Would I joke about my education?_

_R: Yes, you would. You really would._

_M: Fine, you got me. Which makes us even, because I just got you a scotch at Hurley’s._

_R: Rather presumptuous of you._

_M: Well there is an attractive guy at the bar I could offer it to._

_R: I’ll be there in five._

_M: God he’s got nice arms…_

_R: Three. I’ll be there in three._

_M: Whatever you say, professor._

_***_

“You’re a real pest, you know that?” Robb asks her as he settles in next to her, even though he plants a kiss on her cheek. She ignores the fact that it sends a shiver through her.

 

“I think you’re sweating, Robb. It’s negative 10 outside, how fast did you run here?” she asks him teasingly.

 

“I just came from the gym,” Robb lies. She makes a hmm sound but makes no further comment, she just raises her glass in a silent salute. He raises his as well and takes a sip, giving a little sound of approval. She’d gotten his favorite, The Wight Gold Label.

 

“So, to what do I owe the honor of a summons?” he asks her curiously.

 

“My mother,” she says with a shake of her head. Because really, that’s all there was to say.

 

“Should I send a gift?” he teases.

 

“Wine.”

 

“Ah,” he looks at her appraisingly as she sips her martini, “So do you want to talk about it?”

 

“No. I want to drink about it,” she says, downing the last of it.

 

He looks at her like he wants to say something. His blue eyes, the ones she thinks she may enjoy drowning in, crinkle a little but he nods at her almost imperceptibly and turns back to the bartender.

 

“Hey Doc, she’ll have another. And we’ll take two tequila shots, please.”

 

“Have I ever told you I like being friends with you?”

 

***

 

_Friends, friends, friends._

Robb repeats this word in his head about once every thirty seconds while he sits on the bar stool with Ellie. He repeats it every ten when they move to a half-circle booth, meeting in the middle until their knees are touching when they speak.

 

If there was one thing he’d learned about Myrcella Baratheon, it was that she could handle herself. She’d been the only one left standing at Theon’s luau extravaganza, she’d made it to the strip club with them on Jon’s birthday (even remembering to Purell her hands after she’d beat the stripper in a game of pool), and he’d heard enough stories from Sansa to know that this girl was more capable than almost anyone that he knew. So it struck a chord in Robb that it was _him_ she’d called.

 

Sure, it wasn’t like she was in trouble. It wasn’t like she wanted to talk about it. She didn’t even show any signs of being upset, in fact, she’d just told him one of the funniest stories he knew. This was not a girl that _needed_ him, but he liked that when she wanted someone to have a good time with, she’d called him.

 

“So professor…” Ella said, with that mischievous glint in her green eyes.

 

“Why do you call me that?” he asks her curiously, blaming it on the booze and the noisy bar when his body curls towards her.

 

“It started as a reminder,” Ella says to him.

 

“A reminder?” he asks, swallowing hard.

 

“That you were you know, off-limits,” she says, then giggles to herself shaking her head as if she didn’t know why she’d said that. _No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes._

“And now?” he asks her, and his voice has dropped an entire octave.

 

“Well now it’s back-fired. Because really, what’s hotter than something off limits?” she asks him, as though it’s obvious, which it was.

 

Sure, they had become friends over the past few weeks. He cared about her, loved her company, his whole group loved her. But he knew they were nothing but a ticking time bomb. At least, he was.

 

“So is that all I-“ he starts but is interrupted by the stupidest fucking face in the world.

 

“El?” Harry Hardyng cuts into their conversation.

 

Ella drags her eyes away from him and turns, “Hello Harry.”

 

He doesn’t look quite as smug as the last time they’d seen him and he shuffles nervously in front of them now. _Serves him right after cheating on her with half the freshman class, and part of the sophomore._

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” he asks her.

 

Without glancing at Robb she says, “Sure.”

 

So then Robb has to just sit there as she walks away with the boy she thought she’d loved once. _Being friends is bullshit._

***

 

“I’m sorry, El,” Harry says to her with his stupid fucking face.

 

“Well, remorse is the key to not becoming a sociopath so I’m happy for you, Harry,” she says because seriously she and Robb had just been getting closer and she really wanted to know exactly what he was going to say to her.

 

“El, come on… I made a mistake,” he says and looks at her with those soulless brown eyes of his.

 

“You made thirteen mistakes, _if_ I remember correctly. Some at the same time. But, that’s fine. I’m over it. I just also happen to be over you,” she says, because it couldn’t matter less anymore.

 

“Because of that Stark guy?” he asks her.

 

“No because of me. Goodbye, Harry,” she says and without giving him another look she walks away.

 

She’s about to scream when someone grabs her by the arm and pulls her into the bathroom, until she sees it’s Robb. He’s looking at her viciously with those blue eyes of his and she feels it _everywhere._

“Robb, what the fuck?” she asks him.

 

“What did he say to you?” he asks her.

 

“Why do you care?” she asks him.

 

“Because we’re friends,” he says, as though it’s obvious. As though he isn’t still holding onto her arm, as though the short distance between their bodies isn’t alit with a thousand electric currents.

 

“Friends.” She repeats, as though she’s mulling over the word. As though it’s a different language than the one she speaks and she is tasting the concept on her tongue.

 

Summoning all the courage she has, she looks up into his blue eyes and only has a second to let out a gasp before his mouth closes in on hers.

 

It was exactly like the first time and nothing like the first time. He kissed her now as though he meant to devour her. He grips her hips harshly, too harshly, and she moans into his mouth because by god if she isn’t as desperate for him.

 

The kiss could go on for hours or seconds, but her lips must be bruised by the time it’s over, intent on keeping the mark of him for as long as possible.

 

He pushes himself away from her and she can practically feel his emotions radiating off of him.

 

“This can’t happen again. Okay, Ella?” he asks her, demands of her, like she was the one who had _pulled him_ in here.

 

She smirks at him, and nods once, saying, “Yes, professor,” before leaving him on his own.


	7. Baby it's cold outside...

 

_What am I doing here?_

The door opened and the most beautiful girl he knew opened it. “Robb, what are you doing here?” Ella asked him.

 

She was wearing a chunky cream turtleneck sweater and thin grey sweatpants and a pair of slippers with moose on them and his breath still hitched when he saw her.

 

“It’s um… stormy out there,” he said. _Understatement of the century, Stark._

In truth it was shaping up to be the worst storm of the winter, the news was already predicting a few feet of snow at least and thousands were set to lose power before it was through.

 

“I know… classes were cancelled, they told everyone to stay inside. Seriously, what are you doing here?” she asks him, letting him into her room.

 

It was an average sized dorm room, and he immediately knew which was her side. One side of the room was a complete mess and the other was tidy, with a cozy comforter and an artistic photograph above the bed. He gestured to the messy side, ignoring her question, “Where’s Shireen?”

 

“She’s home in Dragonstone for a long weekend. Are you going to tell me why you’re here, or should I guess?” she asked him as he was looking further around the room. A modern bluesy song was playing from her speakers and it looked as though she had pushed all her pillows up to the edge of the window.

 

“Have you been watching the storm?” he asked her instead.

 

“How can you not? It’s beautiful,” she said.

 

“It can be,” he agreed, looking her up and down, “But deadly too.”

 

“Robb?”

 

“Ella…”

 

“Whiskey or gin?”

 

***

 

So she certainly hadn’t _meant_ to get drunk. I mean, who sets out with that intention anyway?

 

But around 6 pm the lights had gone out and they’d ended up lighting all of the candles Shireen wasn’t supposed to have and really there was so very little to do in the dark. So that was why they’d made it through most of the whiskey.

 

“Okay, okay, no no, me,” she said giggling as she shushed Robb. She held her fingers up, letting the light reflect their shadow.

 

“A turkey! A uh…m a drunk turkey!” Robb guessed.

 

“First of all, why do you always guess turkey? It’s never been a turkey, it’s never going to be a turkey. Second of all, how exactly would one tell a drunk turkey from a sober one?”

 

“It’s in their _gait,_ madam,” Robb said defensively.

 

He was an idiot. Nothing more than a junior in college with his whole life ahead of him. He drank too much scotch and got rowdy with his teammates and he wouldn’t be a man for years yet, but she wanted him more than anything else she’d ever known. She wanted his blue eyes drinking her in and the half smile he seemed to reserve for her. She wanted his lame dad jokes and his strong arms and _him_.

 

“Alright, alright, tell me if I’m doing it,” she says getting off the bed.

 

She walked in a straight line, flapping her arms.

 

“Is that drunk turkey or drunk Ella? Because quite frankly, you’re nailing both of them.”

 

“I’m not drunk,” she lied.

 

“You are too,” he said indignantly, he had overindulged as well and the edges of his words had gone blurry.

 

“Are you going to take advantage of me?” she asked him hopefully.

 

“I would never,” he said and she wanted to roll her eyes at him.

 

“Too bad,” she said instead.

 

“Ella,” he said with a sigh.

 

“Robbert,” she said with a scowl.

 

“We said that it wouldn’t happen again.”

 

“No you said that. _After_ you dragged me into a bathroom and kissed me, but before you crossed campus in the worst storm of the year to see me.”

 

“What’s your point?”

 

“Was it not clear?” she asked, crossing back up to the bed and climbing on it until she was kneeling in front of him.

 

“What are you doing to me?” he asked her, even as he reached for her.

 

“What are you doing here, Robb Stark?” she asked him.

 

And then he kissed her.

 

***

 

Kissing Ella was what kissing was supposed to feel like. Hell it was what _everything_ was supposed to feel like. He pulled her into his arms and her tongue tasted like whiskey, but the sweetness and the fire was all her.

 

He kissed her until she was breathless and he captured her sighs like little gifts as her fingers wove into his hair. Suddenly, her hands were trailing down his body and lifting his shirt up and over his head. She pressed kisses to his collarbone and chest, pushing him until he was lying on his back and her golden hair splayed across his chest as her lips and teeth wandered over him.

 

“Ella,” he moaned.

 

She looked up at him and those green eyes of hers, the droplets of jade that contained hidden continents, bore into him with a fire he knew was reflected in his own.

 

“Just like that,” she pleaded, kissing his chest once again, dragging her lips up him, “Please, Robb…always say my name just like that.”

 

He ripped her sweater off of her, making short work of her flimsy bra that separated her skin from his and he flipped her over, his hands cupping her breasts, letting his mouth encircle a perfect rosebud nipple. She let out a gasp and his hardness was becoming painful.

 

Reluctantly his hands left her breasts so that they could yank her sweatpants down, bringing her panties with them as she hurried to kick off her slippers. He barely had a chance to register what a goddess she was before her hands found his belt, hurriedly undoing it. She fumbled with it and he quickly helped her, unzipping his jeans and shoving out of them.

 

“I like the sailboats,” she said, referencing his boxers with a sly, shy smile and he chuckled.

 

“Thanks…uh I didn’t have time to see what was on yours…” he says with a smile, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She smiles and kisses him softly, because really, why had they been rushing?

 

He can feel her smile against his lips as she lets his tongue in once again, and both their hands reach for his boxers at the same time.

 

When they are both completely naked, he lets his hand trace from her elegant neck, to her smooth shoulder, down her arm, where he can circle her hip, letting his hand cup her perfect bottom for a brief moment, before he hitches her leg over him, until once again she sits astride him.

 

She leans down to kiss him again and her hair falls around them like a weeping willow, until all he can see is her and all he can smell is jasmine and all he wants are her lips on his forever.

 

She takes his cock in her small hand and he sees stars as she holds it, rubbing him against her folds. She is wet, so wet for him and he knows he could come just from this.

 

“ _Ella, please…_ ” he pleads with her.

 

She reaches in her bedside table, pulling out a foil packet, tearing it and rolling the condom on him. Before he has time to ask her if she’s ready she’s taken him inside of her and they both let out a guttural moan because _that’s what it would feel like_.

 

She starts to move on him, rocking her hips back and forth in a delicious rhythm. Her body is a sight to behold as her head falls back, putting all of her on display as she rolls against him. She’s too much, she’s every dream he’s ever had and she is sighing his name.

 

His hands find her hips and he starts thrusting up into her. Her head falls forward with a cry, “ _Robb!_ ”

 

“Okay? Tell me if this is okay Ella,” he says, afraid he may have hurt her, forcing himself to slow his movements.

 

“Don’t you _dare_ stop,” she says, placing her hands over his.

 

 _Fuuck_ , he thinks as he grips her tighter, thrusting up into her. He can feel her clenching around him.

 

“Look at me, Ella,” he says in a voice that is half a plea half a demand.

 

Her eyes meet his and there is a flush on her perfect cheeks and as he thrusts up into her again her mouth opens in an incredulous sigh and he seeks that expression again and again like a man possessed.

 

“Robb, _please please I’m so close_ ,” she says, as though he can’t tell. As though he isn’t feeling her walls constrict around him, as though he doesn’t see her perfect nipples peaked, as though he doesn’t see the blush on her cheeks and the clouds in her eyes.

 

“Just a little further sweet girl, you feel so good. I can’t wait to make you come, it’s going to be the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen,” he says and he is descending into madness as he thrusts into her again and again.

 

She has ceased control to him completely, she is simply holding onto him as she lets out sigh after sigh until suddenly the sighs stop. Her eyes flutter open and he could swear there are tears on her eyelashes as she lets out a single word, his name, as the waves come crashing down on her. He fucks her through it, until he feels the last tremor subside and he lets himself go with a cry.

 

He pulls her down to him, not willing to let her go, and he settles them so they lay side by side on her little bed, in a tangle of limbs. He presses a kiss to her hair and sighs. It had been so sudden, so impatient, so all-encompassing that he hadn’t even realized how perfect it was. With the silence of the snow and the disappearing candles and her puffy comforter that smelled like her.

 

“Ella…” he says after a long moment.

 

“Don’t, Robb. Not now. Don’t after that tell me it can’t happen again…” she says against his shoulder.

 

He strokes her cheek with his fingers, until they disappear into her hair, pulling it back gently so she has to look at him.

 

“I won’t. Nothing could keep me from you now,” he says earnestly. Because that hadn’t just been sex, because it was her, because he felt as though if she required it, he might carve his heart from his very chest.

 

She smiles up at him dreamily and he captures her lips in his, reveling in the sweetness of it, and the simple perfection of a beautiful girl in her dorm room on a snowy night.

 

“But… we have to keep it to ourselves for now…” he warns. He knew it would be _alright_ if someone found out. It wasn’t like he was an actual teacher, just a student like her. But it was the principal of the thing. He didn’t like the way it looked and he wasn’t accustomed to doing things that were frowned upon.

 

“Yes professor…” she said, pressing another kiss to him.

 

“Ella…” he groaned against her, because the way she said it was wrong and enticing and so incredibly her that he felt himself harden already.

 

“Teach me again, professor.”


	8. The Long Night

 

“Do you think this is enough?” Theon asked him as they surveyed the room.

 

“Ten kegs? Not to mention more bottles of booze than I can count? I bloody well hope so,” Jon said with a shake of his head.

 

It was the rugby house’s annual Long Night party. It was always held on the last official night of winter, starting right after classes (or sometimes during classes for those poor unfortunates who had evening ones) as the sun set and not stopping until the glow of the dawn was fully upon them. On a few occasions where it had been particularly stormy the day following, the Long Night party continued into the morning. Their freshman year had been like that, and Jon and Robb had spent the majority of the next day alternating between puking and calling every girl they knew asking if they’d gone home with Theon.

 

“Dude, this is _The Long Night_. There can be no _hope_ ,” Theon said.

 

“That’s fucking bleak is what that is,” Robb said as he came in, Gendry trailing behind him.

 

“Gendry motherfucking Waters!” Theon said clapping him on the back, “How is the little she-wolf treating you?”

 

Arya and Gendry were visiting the for the weekend, but per Mrs Stark’s demands, Arya was rooming with Sansa and Gendry was sleeping on his and Robb’s couch. Of course, what they had done on the way there, or what they’d do while at a college party, or for that matter, what they were doing _in Winterfell_ seemed not to concern her.

 

Gendry blushes. He was 20 and a year below them and he knew that Robb at least still terrified him when it came to Arya, even if they had become friends otherwise.

 

“She’s uh… she’s good man,” Gendry says, gratefully taking the beer Jon offers him. Arya and he talked at least once a week so he knew _good_ was an understatement. These kids were in love and had been for some time.

 

“Dead man walking,” Theon said, because stars were practically coming out of Gendry’s eyes and Jon and Robb chuckled, relieved that he was as into Arya as she was into him.

 

The front door opens and in piles in the most beautiful group of girls he’d ever seen. Though three of them are freshman and one of them is still in high school, they show far more wisdom than a lot of their elder counterparts, as they are all dressed in jeans and boots. The Long Night was not a night for mini dresses and heels, and many had to cut it early due to a broken heel or not being able to withstand the cool of the ice luge.

 

“Arya Stark, get _over_ here,” Jon said and before he knew it she was in his arms, her feet nowhere near the floor. She smelled like apples and a hint of smoke and he loved her with his whole heart. The little sister he’d never had.

 

“What did you do to her?” Robb is asking Sansa, who looks devastating in grey jeans that hug her impossibly long legs and a complicated black sweater.

 

“What did I _do_ to her?” Sansa asks her favorite brother with her hands on her hips. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

 

“I mean she looks like a fucking college girl, _Sansa_ ,” he said, glowering at his favorite sister.

 

“You do realize that at this party there are four boys that would quite literally _kill_ for her. Not to mention a sister that would _torture_ for her. I think she’ll be okay with a little _eyeliner…_ Asshat.”

 

There is silence following Sansa’s speech until Ella makes a sound that sounds like a snort before doubling over in laughter. It’s impossible not to join her because Robb was right, the girl is like sunshine.

 

“I thought this party was supposed to be _epic_ ,” Shireen said, in a shockingly good impersonation of Theon. “Where is everyone?”

 

“Patience, my sweet,” Theon said, crossing over to her.

 

“I’m not your anything, Greyjoy,” Shireen said with a huff though she blushed anyway.

 

“The night is young beautiful,” he said, answering both remarks, as though completely unfazed, which he probably was, because he was Theon. “You guys are just the A-list. Gotta have a good group for the pre-drink.”

 

Ella rolled her eyes and crossed the room, kissing Jon’s cheek before heading to the speakers. She perused Theon’s phone that had already been plugged and shook her head at the selection before coming across something she was happy with.

 

“This one’s for you, Robb Stark,” she said with a point of a manicured finger. Jon followed the line of it to Robb’s blushing face and all of a sudden the Spice Girls came blaring through every speaker in the house.

 

All the girls, even Arya, started dancing to the familiar words, and suddenly Jon was being pulled into the center of the room by a laughing Ella and Shireen who insisted he booty bump them.

 

***

 

“Are you trying to kill me?” Robb asked her as he poured her gin and tonic. The party had officially started, and hundreds of college students littered the dilapidated mansion.

 

“Not currently,” she says, “Though as Theon says, the night is still young. Why do you ask?”

 

“ _Look_ at you,” he says, and his gorgeous blue eyes do just that, causing a blush down her cheeks.

 

“I’m wearing jeans and a sweater,” she says, looking down at her outfit with a smirk, because she _knew_ he’d like it and she was trying to kill him just a tiny bit.

 

“You’re wearing tight black jeans and a fuzzy white sweater designed to make me want to bury my face in it and fuck me boots,” he complains as he hands her the drink and reluctantly cheers’ hers.

 

“Fuck me boots?” Ella asked with a laugh, then just to toy with him, she stepped a little closer, “You mean you wouldn’t want me if I was wearing my moose slippers?”

 

He growled at her, “I _love_ those slippers. I want you all the fucking time and we both know it.”

 

Robb Stark was sexy. Everything about him was sexy. His blue eyes and his kissable lips. His square jaw and athlete’s body. His sense of humor and his kindness and how much he loved his sisters and the way he was starting to love her just a little. And there was nothing sexier than how much he wanted her. Every girl should be wanted the way he wanted her, and in return, she was helpless against him.

 

“Want to know a secret?” she asked him conspiratorially. He raised his eyebrows, “I want you too. Right _now_.”

 

“Meet me upstairs in five. I’ll find you.”

 

“Yes, professor.”

 

***

 

 “So Gendry,” Sansa said as they finished their vodka shots, “Are you going to come away with us this summer?”

 

“Oh… uh… I don’t know. I should probably work…” he said, clearing his throat.

 

Gendry lived on his own, now that his mother had died, and she knew that he struggled to support himself while he was in school. It was one of the things she liked most about him. Not that he struggled, she’d never wish that on anyone, but that he pursued his education even though it would be easier not to. It showed that he played the long game. Just like she did.

 

“Oh… that’s too bad. We’d love to have you. I hope you can come for at least a couple of long weekends or a week or something,” she said genuinely. She loved how happy he made Arya. Her normally prickly sister was almost soft in his presence and she could tell he cared for her more than his own life. But it was more than that. He was steadiness itself and she found it comforting. It was like how Jon used to feel, before it had all gone so wrong.

 

“I haven’t thanked you yet, for being so nice to me, I mean…” Gendry said as he poured them another.

 

“You don’t have to thank me, just keep making her happy,” Sansa said genuinely.

 

“I’m going to, I promise,” he said and held up his shot glass for her to cheers.

 

Shireen wandered into the room then and Sansa pulled her to her.

 

“I love you Shireen Baratheon,” Sansa said, throwing her arms around her.

 

“As I love you Sans-“

 

“Baratheon?” Gendry cut in.

 

Shireen looked at him, “Yes?”

 

“Is your father Robert?” he asked her, and there was anger in his normally kind blue eyes.

 

“No, he was my uncle,” Shireen says and Sansa turns to her with a question in her eyes.

 

“He’s dead? Robert Baratheon is _dead_?” Gendry asked and Sansa had had too much to drink to understand it. His anger, or the sadness when he asked that, or how he knew who Robert Baratheon was at all.

 

“Yes, has been for years,” Ella says as she comes down the stairs looking slightly disheveled if Sansa was seeing clearly. “Did you know my father?”

 

Gendry looks at her as though the devil may seep out of her pores at any moment. He was looking at Ella, the sweetest, funniest, best girl in the world like she contained hidden depths of evil inside of her.

 

“No,” Gendry says and his voice is like the edge of a blade. He crosses to her and Sansa wants to stop him. Ella though she doesn’t know Gendry, shows no fear and stands straight, “I never knew _your father_ , only by reputation,” he says getting right in her face.

 

Sansa doesn’t have time to see if Ella looks frightened or confused or anything because suddenly Robb has come down the stairs as well and jumps in front of her, pushing Gendry back at least three feet with fire in his eyes.

  
“Walk away, Waters,” he says and his voice is more menacing than she’d ever heard it. He was practically shaking. _What the fuck is going on?_ “Now.”

 

“Robb,” Ella said quietly, “It’s okay. I’m okay. Calm down,” she said, cooing reassuring words at him and tugging on his sleeve.

 

The contact seemed to break something in Robb and he turned from Gendry, giving him ample time to walk away, which he mercifully did, as Robb turned back to Ella and touched his fingertips to her cheek, his thumb rubbing the spot where her dimple would appear, looking at her intently, searching her eyes with his own.

 

 _Of course_ , Sansa thought.

 

***

 

“What the fuck was that Gendry?” Robb asks him as he follows his little sister’s boyfriend into the snowy night.

 

“Leave me alone, Stark,” Gendry said, and Robb had to fight the urge to tackle him here and now.

 

He’d nearly lost his mind when he’d seen Gendry charge Ella. Though it had become clear he wasn’t going to hurt her, it did nothing to abate Robb’s fears and he was incensed with a singular mission: protect her.

 

He knew he was falling for her. He had been falling for her since the night he’d met her, and every day, every laugh, every kiss was bringing him towards his inevitable doom, when she would own him forever.

 

He just hadn’t realized quite how quickly. But he knew in that moment that it could have been a bullet coming towards her and his reaction would have been the same, to shield her body with his own.

 

“No. You just charged an eighteen year old girl in the middle of a fucking party. What the fuck?” he said, because seriously, _what the fuck_?

 

“I’m sorry if I scared your girlfriend, alright?” Gendry said, and to his credit he seems genuinely sorry. In fact, he seemed genuinely horrified.

 

“She’s uh… not my girlfriend,” Robb said stupidly. Gendry fixed him with a look and Robb nodded.

 

“Her father… destroyed my mother,” Gendry says, running his hands through his hair.

 

“What do you mean?” Robb asked. Gendry was from the Northeast, Myrcella from the Southwest, how had their parents even met?

 

“My mother used to live in Storm’s End… she uh… she was Ella’s father’s secretary and… well they had an affair. After that… he just… I mean… she knew he was married… but… still… she couldn’t really find work down there after that… her parents disowned her when they found out and she just… she was always so lost,” Gendry said and there were tears in his eyes.

 

Not for the first time, Robb realized how lucky he was. His parents loved each other, a crazy amount. He had both of them and his siblings and still had most of his grandparents. He had a family.

 

“That’s fucked up, man. I’m sorry,” he said putting his hand on Gendry’s shoulder. He could see it all, why Gendry was so obstinately moral, so focused on getting his degree while working. He refused to let circumstances dictate his future.

 

“No…I’m sorry… that poor girl… I just… I lost it when I heard the name. Is she okay? Fuck, I’m _not_ like that. I’d never hurt anyone, I’d never hurt your sister, I’m so fucking sorry,” Gendry said, his eyes crazed.

 

“It’s okay… it’s okay, alright? Ella’s stronger than she looks. _Much_ stronger, I’m actually a little surprised she didn’t deck you. But… she’s good, man. From what you’ve said, she’s nothing like her father. She’s kind, so incredibly kind, and I bet… I bet she’d talk to you if you wanted her to,” Robb said.

 

“I would, for the record…” a soft voice came from behind him.

 

“Ella, I’m sorry…” Gendry said and approached her slowly as if not to spook her.

 

“It’s alright… from what I’ve heard about you, my father must have done something terrible to make you react like that…” Ella said as she stepped towards him, closing the distance. Even with Gendry’s calmer demeanor now, Robb had to fight not to step in front of her. _You’re in trouble._

“Yeah… he um…” Gendry said, clearly searching for his words. Because really, how could you tell an eighteen year old girl that her deceased father had ruined your mother’s life?

 

“You know what the truly crazy thing is?” Ella asked.

 

“What’s that?” Gendry asked, clearly grateful to be interrupted.

 

“You look just like him,” Ella said, and there were tears in her eyes.


	9. The Long Night Continues...

 

 

 

“What the hell was that?” Jon asks her as he crosses the room. “Is Ella okay?”

 

“Yeah, she’s fine Jon. Robb’s with her,” Sansa says and sees him relax instantly. For some reason, they both seemed to know that nothing bad would ever happen to Ella when she was with Robb.

 

“Is there…is there something going on with them?” she asks him.

 

“I have my suspicions… nothing concrete though…” Jon says with his crinkly smile that finds its home down in her ribs.

 

She only nods at him and looks at him appraisingly, “So an almost fight at a keg party, is that what it takes to get you to talk to me these days?”

 

Just like the smile is gone. She had a talent for taking his happiness away it seemed. “Sansa…”

 

“I think you’re full of shit, Jon Snow,” she says defiantly.

 

“Excuse me?” he asks her, and she can see the heat rise in his cheeks. _Good_ , she thought, _he lets his emotions get the best of him. All I have to do is rile him up._

“You heard me, Jon. Wouldn’t the _guy for me_ I don’t know… check in to see how I’m doing?” she asked him. When he started to protest her anger, however irrational, rose, “You went from spending almost _every_ night in my bed, to seeing Shireen and Ella more than me. Don’t you…” she starts but cuts herself off.

 

“Don’t I what, Sansa?” he asks her through clenched teeth.

 

“Don’t you miss me at all?” she asks, and hates how small her voice sounds.

 

 _This shouldn’t feel good,_ she thinks as he yanks her body to him, crushing her lips with his own. She holds onto him desperately as he drags her into a closet. He pushes himself away from her, “Of _course_ I miss you,” he says, and he’s too much, he’s always been too much as he invades her space again and all she can see and feel is him. “Some days I feel like I will go mad from missing you, Sansa. But… this is too fucking hard. Are you in or are you out?”

 

FLASHBACK

 

_“What say you, Stark, are you in or are you out?” Jon asked her with that cocky expression he seemed to reserve solely for her these days._

_It was one of their last days at the lake, one of their last days of summer before she started university with him and Robb. She had grown up that year, everyone said so, and they had been dancing around each other for months._

_There had been a big blowout, and after a very drunken game of truth or dare, her and Jon had decided to sober up with a swim._

_“In,” she said breezily, as if it couldn’t matter less, ripping her top off and shimmying out of her shorts. She didn’t give him another glance before hopping into the lake. If there was one thing Sansa Stark knew, it was that no boy could resist indifference or nudity. Even near nudity._

_Just as she predicted, seconds after she reached the surface again, she felt a large splash behind her and suddenly she was in his arms. The lake was cold but his body was still warm and the contrast somehow made her shiver more._

_“Let me go, Jon Snow,” she said, trying to wrestle away._

_“Is that really what you want?” he asked her, his lips nearly at her ear._

_“Yes,” she lied. Because he was her brother’s best friend and too broody for her taste. Because he made her feel weak and silly and not at all like the ice queen she preferred to be. Because his arms felt too good around her and she couldn’t control a feeling like that._

_“Liar,” he said and she could hear his grin. That cocky grin that she felt down in her toes._

_She turned then, because if she was going down she sure as hell wasn’t going down alone._

_“And what makes you so sure of that?” she asks him with a raise of one eyebrow._

_“Because you’re a brat, Sansa. Always have been, always will be. You’re never more defiant than when you want something,” he said, and he leaned in close to her, his strong arms holding her to him, “And I’ve never seen you more defiant than this summer. You want me and it terrifies you.”_

_“You don’t scare me, Jon Snow,” she says, though it’s a lie._

_“Well you’re the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, Sansa Stark,” he says. And then, he kisses her._

_Instantly, she knows that this is the kiss she’ll remember on her death bed. No matter who she marries, how many men she loves, this is the kiss she’ll remember as the beginning of it all. The first kiss when she felt everything you were supposed to feel. Everything they told you you’d feel. She knew that she’d always remember the vibrancy of the stars and the cold clear water and the most terrifying boy in the world holding her in his arms like he’d do it forever if she’d let him._

PRESENT DAY

 

“In…” she says, because there is no more fight left in her. He had been right that night. She wanted him and it terrified her. She was a brat and she’d never want a single thing as much as she wanted Jon Snow. “I’ve always been in, and you’ve always known it.”

 

It was warm in the closet, and there were no stars that she could see, but she knew she’d always remember this kiss too, with the most terrifying boy in the world, who made her feel safer than anything she’d ever known.

 

***

 

“You didn’t have to walk me home,” Ella says to him as they stand outside of her dorm room.

 

“Yes, I did,” he says, as though it’s crazy because it is. She nods, because he’s right. He liked that about her. She was so rarely wrong, but she admitted it immediately when she was. She had grace, true grace, and it made her seem so much older than eighteen.

 

“My um…” she says, and her lower lip starts to tremble, “My father… my father had a baby…” she says, as tears pool in her eyes, defiantly refusing to fall, “And he just… he just abandoned him…” she started shaking her head and his heart was breaking watching her, “And I don’t even get to be mad at him… because he’s dead and he can’t apologize. He can’t ever make it right. So I don’t get to be mad at him… or I’d have to be mad at him _forever_ ,” she finishes and that does it. He can see her pain as though it is an open wound and he wishes to god that it could be imprinted on his skin instead of hers.

 

She had been so perfect with Gendry. She had listened to everything, never shedding a tear. Only listening and nodding and telling him how sorry she was. They had made a plan to get their DNA tested, though the three of them knew there was no need, and she had hugged him and told him that she would have loved to know him his whole life. That she didn’t ever want to not know him again. And when Arya had come out to find them in the snow, she had embraced his sister like she was her own blood and thanked her for loving Gendry the way he was supposed to be loved.

 

He pulls her into his arms and feels her sob against him and she feels so small and she sounds too broken for a girl of her age. He feels himself becoming a man as he stands there in her dorm hallway. He feels himself shedding his boyhood, shedding all vestiges of immaturity, his love for her, the love he hadn’t even admitted to himself, was pulling it from him and he surrendered it willingly. He could do it, for her.

 

“Stop making me need you,” she said, though she gripped him tighter.

 

“No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! I promise happier days will be here again...
> 
> Also, will people totally hate me if I experiment with Shireen and Theon?


	10. The Morning After...

 

She woke up with a Stark in her bed.

 

The dull grey light of the morning woke Ella out of her dream. She had been falling, just falling, and so she was especially surprised to find herself anchored to none other than Robb Stark.

 

When she woke, all she could smell was him, and her face was buried in his chest, his arms clutched tightly around her, their legs a tangled pile.

 

She’d gotten a text from Shireen shortly after they returned that she wouldn’t be coming back that night, so Ella had shyly asked Robb to stay. It was the first night they’d slept in the same bed without having sex, and it felt so much more intimate, waking up in his arms after simply sleeping together.

 

“Wake up…” she said, nudging him softly.

 

“No…” he said grouchily making her smile.

 

“But I _want_ you,” she said brattily and felt his arms tighten as he woke.

 

“Ella,” he groaned as he shifted them so he hovered above her.

 

“Do you want me too?” she asked him, her fingers trailing down his perfect body so that she could cup him through his boxers. _Yes_ , she thought as she rubbed the hard length of him.

 

He pushed down her pajama pants and went to rub her. He could get her off in 30 seconds flat when he wanted to but this morning that is not what she wanted. She wanted him, all of him and she wanted him this instant.

 

“Please, no Robb, I’m ready for you, please,” she said, pushing down his boxers and parting her legs for him.

 

“ _Fuck_ Ella,” he said with a hiss, and he poised himself at her entrance. “Oh my god, you’re so fucking wet. How did I do this to you? Tell me…” he said teasing her with his tip.

 

“I just… want you all the fucking time,” she said, quoting him from the night before. “I feel like I’m going mad sometimes, Robb. Please. Please take me, please.”

 

“Ella, Ella, Ella,” he whispered like a prayer as he pushed inside of her. There was nothing like the feeling of him filling her and she let out a sigh as she wrapped her legs around him.

 

He started to move, bringing her arms above her head and intertwining his fingers with hers as he thrust into her.

 

“Oh just like that Robb, your cock feels so good inside of me,” she says in a daze. She had never spoken like this before.

 

“God Ella keep talking…” he sputtered out as he picked up his pace.

 

“So good… this is all I want, you’re all I want, I don’t care about anything else just this, just us, please, please Robb don’t ever stop wanting this,” she says, feeling the clouds of madness descend as he surrounds her, demanding her fealty.

 

“Oh fuck, Ella…” he says, kissing her collarbone and neck as he rolls his hips into her just so making her moan the way he knew it would. “I don’t have rights when I’m with you. I don’t have a say. I could never stop wanting this, you. You’re all I want, every second of every day I want this and you and oh fuck _baby_ fuck I love this cunt.”

 

“ _Robb_ ” she says with a gasp because it’s filthy and it frightens her that she likes it.

 

“Don’t pretend not to like it,” he says, and there is an edge in his voice now that sends shivers down her spine. Sometimes when they were together he’d get hard and demanding and whether it was wrong or right she loved it. “I could feel your perfect cunt tighten around me when I said it. You can’t lie to me Ella…” he said, pumping into her harder now. There was a sheen of sweat across his forehead and his eyes were trained on her face, taking in each sigh and moan. He could talk all big and tough but she owned him here and that knowledge made everything they did together feel safe, so she relaxed around him. “That’s it, Ella… give into me. Give into this. Fuck baby you woke up so wet for me, you wanted this didn’t you?”

 

“Yes Robb, yes I wanted this,” she says truthfully. “I woke up needing your big, hard, cock,” she says just to fuck with him.

 

“ _Ella_ ” he groans, “I need you to come. Come for me, _now_ ,” he demands, arching his hips into hers and eliciting a cry. He follows close behind her and collapses down on top of her.

 

“Robb…” she says quietly and his head pops up, moving to support himself on his elbows. His fingertips sweep her cheek slowly as the pad of his thumb presses against where he said her dimple appeared. It was just like he had done last night, like he had so many nights before. His way of checking on her, as though he could feel everything he needed to through just the touch of those fingertips.

 

“Yes, sweet girl?” he asked her.

 

“I think I love you,” she said, her heart racing but her voice soft and sure.

 

She wishes she had a camera, but she knows that she could live to be a thousand and she’d never forget his face when she said it.

 

He smiled down at her, rubbing his nose against hers, “Well let me know when you’re sure, my love.”

 

She breathed out, “I am sure. I don’t know why I said that. I love you, Robb Stark.”

 

“I love you, sweet girl. And I want everyone to know it…but first…” he said and then his mouth closed around her nipple and she felt that everything else could wait just a little while longer as his hands explored the continents of her body.

 

***

 

He woke up with a Stark in his bed.

 

Or to put it correctly, he woke up with a naked Sansa on top of him in his bed. He shifted because everything was still asleep, a delicious pain he hoped to feel every morning, and she woke as he moved.

 

“Where are you going, handsome?” she asked him grouchily.

 

“Nowhere. Ever,” he promised her, rolling them so he was on top of her.

 

“Mmmm,” she murmured as he let his hands roam over her perfect body.

 

“You love me,” he smiled against her skin, still reveling in the sweet victory of her affection.

 

“So what, you love me too,” she said brattily making him chuckle.

 

“I do,” he nodded, letting his tongue swirl over her rosebud nipple. “I love you, Sansa Stark,” he said kissing his way down her body, “I love you, I love you, _I love you_.”

 

His tongue found her center and he let his tongue lap at her, loving the way her hands found his hair immediately as her legs fell open. Even when she had denied him her heart she never denied him her body, and it was no small thing for the stoic and strong Sansa Stark to be naked and vulnerable before him.

 

“ _Yes, yes Jon_ ,” she cried out as he sucked on her nub, letting two fingers enter her and moving them in and out at a teasing pace.

 

“So beautiful, my lovely girl,” he cooed at her, feeling himself harden and licking her more purposefully now, intent on making her come before he took her.

 

“Oh Jon…” she breathed out, rolling her hips and causing him to see stars.

 

“That’s it, beauty,” he said, swirling his tongue against her in a way he knew she loved and then she was pulling his hair so hard he thought he might lose it as he felt her walls tighten around him.

 

Before he had time to think straight she had flipped over and he couldn’t help but bite her perfect butt cheek.

 

“Jon!” she exclaimed and he grinned roguishly.

 

He climbed up her body, pressing kisses in between her shoulder blades as he pulled her by her waist up so that he could enter her in one quick motion.

 

“ _Oooh”_

_“_ That’s it, beauty,” he said as he started thrusting into her. “Did you miss this?”

 

“Yes, _yes Jon_ , it’s all I thought about,” she cries, pushing back against him, meeting his thrusts. “You’re all I thought about. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t ever leave me alone again…”

 

 _Oh fuck, oh fuck_ , he thinks. He had long since forgiven her but oh god if he didn’t want to hear that.

 

“I will never leave you, my lovely girl,” he said, whispering promises against her skin. “I love you, do you hear me? I will never leave you.”

 

He isn’t sure if it’s his words or his movements but she comes apart again and when he feels her pulsing around him, her sweet cries filling his ears, he follows her, willingly, like he always will.

 

***

 

MEANWHILE…

 

There was a Baratheon in his bed. In all his life, he had never seen a girl sleep so soundly before, but her eyelids touched her cheeks as she seemed to live the dreams of the truly innocent. She was wearing his rugby shirt and he found himself hoping that it would smell like her when she returned it.

 

His bare feet moved across the wood floor causing it to creak and she stirred, stretching like a cat, before blinking awake. Her blue eyes landed on his and she gave him a single, heartbreaking smile before they popped open, now truly awake as she sat up. She rubbed her temple as though trying to smooth something out in her mind.

 

“What happened?” she asks, covering herself with his covers as though she wasn’t drowning in a long sleeve shirt.

 

“The Long Night happened, beautiful,” he said with a smirk. The look of horror she gave him churned deep in his stomach, “But uh… nothing. I didn’t even sleep in here. You just… Ella left and I didn’t want you walking home alone…”

 

He tries not to feel ashamed with the relief that crosses her features. He gets it, really he does. He was Theon Greyjoy, all around asshole and not exactly the boy that good girls wanted to wake up with (though many had).

 

Her blue eyes looked at him appraisingly, a slow smile lighting her truly exquisite features, melting the harshness of the scar on her cheek that he didn’t even think marred her beauty.

 

“You’re not as bad as everyone thinks you are, are you Greyjoy?” she asks him, in that teasing lilt that makes him want to catch her words on his lips.

 

“Oh contraire, Baratheon. I’m exactly as bad as everyone thinks I am,” he says with a grin because its true. Because he was an animal and he was looking at her like prey, the most beautiful prey he’d ever seen.

 

She looks at him as though she knows better. He’s seen that look before. The one that says she thinks she can change him. That she’s the girl that could do it, that she could tame him. He’s seen it many times but this is the first time he wanted the girl to be right.

 

“We’ll see about that,” she says with a smile. “Grab some bed, Greyjoy, I always like a good cuddle when I’m hungover.”

 

Theon Greyjoy _doesn’t_ cuddle. He especially doesn’t cuddle girls that he didn’t sleep with. Nevertheless, he crawls into bed next to her and tentatively opens his arms to her. She lays her cheek against his chest and her fingers bunch in his shirt and for a little while he lives the dreams of the innocent too.

 


	11. A bit of honesty...

 

 

She walked back in the room and all he smelled was jasmine.

 

“Ella it’s _Saturday_ , where are you going?” he asked her grumpily, because really, there were so many things they could be doing that didn’t require the black cashmere turtleneck she was pulling on.

 

“Gendry,” she said simply and Robb nodded, getting up. There was nothing he cared about more than his siblings, and Ella had just found out that she had another. Of course she wanted to go to him as soon as possible.

 

She pulled on a pair of jeans, pulling her hair out of the turtleneck as it fell like a gold curtain about her make-up free face. He grabbed the pair of ski socks off her bed and knelt in front of her. She smirked at him, but kicked a delicate foot out, allowing him to pull one on her and then the other. He pulled her snow boots on then and she pulled his face up to hers planting a light kiss on his lips.

 

When she pulled away, there was a crease in her lovely brow and she said cautiously, as though afraid he might deny her this, deny her anything, “Do you maybe want to come?”

 

She had asked him last night to stop making her need him and he said no because he wanted this. Wanted her. Wanted to know what it felt like to have the unflappable Myrcella Baratheon rely on him and try with all his might to be worthy of it.

 

“Absolutely, let’s take them to brunch. Food will solve _everything_ ,” he said, knowing that Gendry and Arya would certainly be nursing hangovers and jumbled nerves.

 

They crossed campus to the apartment he shared with Jon, knowing that regardless of his mother’s rules, both Arya and Gendry would have ended up there.

 

When they come in the front door, Arya says in her normal deadpan, “Oh thank fucking god. Jon has a _lady companion_ over and they won’t stop fucking doing it.”

 

“Good morning to you too, sweet sister,” Robb says with a smirk.

 

“Yeah, yeah _good morning_ ,” Arya says rubbing her head, “I need coffee and a Vicodin.”

 

Ella giggles at his side leaning up and whispering in his ear teasingly, “Your sisters are funnier than you.”

 

“So this is a thing then?” Gendry asks, his blue eyes flitting between them.

 

Robb throws his arm over Ella’s shoulders, “Yeah, it’s a thing.”

 

“I know I’m new to this whole _brother_ thing, but if you hurt her I’ll kick your ass.”

 

Robb nods at Arya, “Well if you hurt _her_ I’ll kick your ass.”

 

Ella crosses to Arya and tugs her by the hand, “Come on, sweetling. Let them have their testosterone filled fantasies. We all know that if _either_ of them hurt us, we’ll be the ones doing the ass kicking.”

 

“I like this one,” Arya shouts at him as she follows Ella back out into the cold.

 

***

 

She had never liked her father’s profile more until she saw it in Gendry’s laughing face as he slung his arm around Arya in their booth at the restaurant.

 

The features that had been distorted by alcohol and disappointment in her father were renewed in Gendry. He was smart and strong and he looked at Arya like she was responsible for the sun rising in the morning. In turn, Arya softened under his gaze and the giggle, the one that made you smile just to hear it, was constant in his presence.

 

“Okay, okay, another one!” Arya said. “Favorite… dessert…”

 

“Lavender ice cream!” her and Gendry shouted and then his blue eyes met hers in horror.

 

“That is so fucking weird,” Robb said at her side and she stuck her tongue out at him.

 

“Ah, Miss Baratheon, Mr. Stark,” a simpering voice said at their side.

 

“P-professor Varys,” she said, trying to scooch away from Robb, but he held her to him stubbornly. This was not missed by her sharp eyed professor.

 

“I’m very much enjoying your paper on the exploration of the origins of Nabis paintings through sixteenth century court poetry, Miss Baratheon,” he says to her.

 

“Oh… thank you Professor Varys… I…”

 

“You would have thought that Mr. Stark would be reading it, is that right?” he asked her knowingly, causing a blush down her cheeks.

 

“Well, yes…” she says. Robb was the TA after all, the unfortunate soul who had to read all of their papers as Professor Varys had told them on the first day of class.

 

“He thought it best for me to read yours due to your uh… relationship,” he said with a wink. “I have to say…I’m grateful to him. Have you considered a major in literature?”

 

“Yes, Professor Varys, that is what I’m hoping to do…”

 

“Very good. Stop by my office hours and we’ll discuss it.”

 

“You don’t have office hours…”

 

“Oh right, well… then perhaps you could speak with my TA. I’m sure he’d be _more_ than happy to arrange a time. Enjoy your bellini, Miss Baratheon,” and with that he walked away with those annoyingly small steps of his.

 

“What the hell just happened?” Gendry asked, mimicking her thoughts exactly.

 

“Robb Stark,” she said firmly. Robb’s ears turned pink as he turned to her sheepishly. “Do you mean to tell me that Professor Varys _knows_ about us?”

 

“Well I mean… I think he technically knows everything about everyone…” Robb says avoiding her gaze.

 

“Robb.”

 

“Okay, fine. Yes. I didn’t feel right grading your papers and he asked me why and he just kind of guessed.”

 

“And when was this, exactly?” she asks him with an arch of her eyebrow.

 

“Around the time you turned in the paper identifying each of King Arthur’s knights as one of the saints…” he said.

 

“That was the first paper of the term!” she said indignantly. “How long… you’re a piece of _work_ Robb Stark.”

 

“Yeah, and you’re irresistible, Myrcella Baratheon,” pulling her to him and making her forgive him anything, forget everything. She stared into his blue eyes and a small smile appeared on both of their faces.

 

“Uh guys… can you like stop? I drank way too much whiskey last night and if I have to watch you guys eye caress each other I think I’m going to vomit up my eggs benedict,” Arya says.

 

“The love of my life, ladies and gentlemen,” Gendry says with a flourish and Ella gives him a smile of understanding.

 

She could think of worse starts than that to the beginning of a sibling relationship, a mutual love of lavender ice cream and infuriating humans whose last name was Stark.

 

***

 

“Yes!” she heard two girls shout.

 

“No!” she heard two boys shout in return.

 

“Come _onnnn_ ,” one, the one that had to be Ella said in the lilting coo she seemed to reserve just for Robb.

 

“Just fucking _do_ it,” she heard Arya say.

 

Her and Jon looked at each other in a panic. They had been making love for the majority of last night and today and had kind of forgotten that other people existed. They had recently risen to at least shower and brush their teeth, and she had just been pulling on a pair of his sweatpants.

 

“What do we do?” Jon asked her.

 

“We go see what exactly they are trying to convince the boys to do. My guess is it’s going to be _fun_ ,” Sansa says with a smirk as she pulled on one of his many black t-shirts.

 

“Sansa. That is the most protective person in the world out there! And Robb’s there too!” Jon said and she could see his eyes turning black.

 

“When did you become such a _pansy_ Jon Snow?” she asks him, crossing to him. “Don’t you love me?”

 

“Yes,” he growls at her.

 

“And don’t you think they love you?” she asks him.

 

“Yes,” he says defeatedly.

 

“So?” she says with a raise of an eyebrow. He simply nods at her.

 

Sansa Stark was many things, but a pansy wasn’t one of them, so she simply opened the door and sat next to Ella (her safest option) on the couch. God bless that girl, because Ella threw her arms around her, resting her legs on her until she was practically sitting in her lap, acting as a human shield against Robb and Arya whose eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of their sockets.

 

Jon followed her out and now he was the recipient of Robb and Arya’s stares.

 

“Jon and I are dating,” Sansa said defiantly.

 

“So are me and Robb,” Ella said quietly.

 

“And Gendry’s her brother,” Arya piped up.

 

“I think I need a drink,” Jon said with a shake of his head.

 

***

 

Somehow it turned into a bit of a party. No one had ever thought to have one after the Long Night, but the Stark siblings and their significant others did and so that is why at 4 pm on a Saturday afternoon when everyone really should have been sleeping, or better yet at the library, students of all classes were floating in and out of Jon and Robb’s apartment.

 

It had become a Come as You Are party, so most students were in some form of pajamas or other, and the drink of choice for most was a Bloody Mary.

 

Robb was sitting on his couch when Ella, looking decidedly _too_ put together crossed over to him and plopped on his lap.

 

“Hi lover,” she cooed at him.

 

“Lover?” he asked her with a smile. She had called him many things, but this was a first.

 

“Yes, _lover_ ,” she said defiantly kissing his cheek. “I lover you,” she said with a giggle.

 

“Oh my god you are so drunk,” he said with a laugh. He loved Ella completely, but he had a special soft spot in his heart for drunk Ella. She was adorable and always extra affectionate, never sloppy.

 

“I am not!” she said defiantly, then she looked around and whispered in his ear, “I am. Don’t tell anyone.”

 

He pulled back so he could look at her. There was a blush in her cheeks and her green eyes were a little starry but she was still more composed than most of the people here. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, rubbing the shell of it. “Promise,” he said.

 

“Such a good lover,” she said with a smile, planting a sweet, light kiss on his lips.

 

“Ellabelle?” a now familiar voice said.

 

“Shmy!” Ella said standing up and prancing over to her cousin, who had just walked in the door with Theon Greyjoy of all people.

 

Shireen returned Ella’s hug tenfold, the two girls embracing like they hadn’t seen each other in years, and Shireen gave him an accusing look over Ella’s shoulder.

 

“You have a new cousin,” Ella said, stepping back to look at Shireen, suddenly sober.

 

“Did Renley and Loras finally adopt the baby?” Shireen asked her.

 

“No. Gendry, get over here!” Ella shouted.

 

As if he had been following the commands of his little sister his whole life, Gendry tears away from the game of kings he was playing, wrapping an arm around Ella’s shoulders. He too had partaken too much and Robb couldn’t really tell which of them was holding the other up.

 

“Gendry, this is Shireen Baratheon. Our cousin and all around _savior_ ,” Ella said earnestly. The girls were practically sisters.

 

“Shireen… uh.. sorry for last night I mean… it’s nice to meet you properly,” Gendry said.

 

“You look like him,” Shireen said with a nod. They in fact had the same blue eyes, the Baratheon blue that she supposedly shared with both her uncles. Ella was all Lannister in looks apparently.

 

An old hip-hop song came on and Ella’s hips started moving, grabbing Shireen and pulling her to the center of the floor.

 

“Come on Gendry,” Shireen said over her shoulder as Ella tugged her.

 

“I uh, don’t dance,” Gendry said sheepishly.

 

“You do now,” Ella said simply, doing a ridiculous shimmy and causing him to laugh incredulously.

 

Both she and Shireen grabbed one of his hands and he looked like a big oak tree in between two beautiful flowers. He looked at them like he had waited his whole life for girls like them to boss him around.

 

As Ella started jumping up and down shouting “Go, go, go”, Gendry Waters, who by all accounts did not dance, busted out the sprinkler.

 

***

 

“You _have_ to come to school here,” Ella said to Arya as they sat on the counter of Robb and Jon’s kitchen, as Jon made them grilled cheeses.

 

“I don’t know…” Arya says. “I got in, but I also got into the local university… I… don’t know if I could leave Winterfell.”

 

“You mean Gendry,” Ella says quietly.

 

“Him too,” Arya says, and then turns to her, fear in her dark eyes, “I love him so much it scares me. He doesn’t have a family and I always tell him I’ll be his family. I can’t leave him now.”

 

Ella grabs her hand, so grateful to this girl who had been there for her brother before she could be. She couldn’t explain it really, the fierceness with which she loved Gendry already. She loved him as she was supposed to love Joffrey, as she did love Tommen. She loved him with her whole heart, and if she hadn’t been half in love with Arya on her own merits anyway, she still would have loved her for the way she made Gendry feel.

 

“He has a family now, I promise. And we’re here. Shireen and I… we’re never going to let him be alone again,” she vowed.

 

“Even still, Ella. He can’t move here…he can’t afford it,” Arya says defeatedly.

 

“Yes he can,” Ella said suddenly. The plan crystalizing within her first thought.

 

“What are you talking about?” Arya asked.

 

“He’s getting my portion of the Baratheon trust,” Ella said.

 

“No I’m not,” Gendry said as he entered into the kitchen, and she saw the same anger in his eyes that she’d seen the night before. A particular brand of anger caused by fear and sadness.

 

“Yes you are,” Ella said, “I have the Lannister trust as well. I don’t need it and I don’t want it.”

 

“You think _I_ want it? You think I want anything from him?” he asked her.

 

“It’s not from him. It’s a trust that was established before he was born, and it’s in my name now. There’s nothing to decide tonight, Gendry. But… just think about it, okay?” she asked him pleadingly.

 

“I’m not a charity case, Ella,” he said.

 

“You think she’s offering out of charity?” Jon cut in to her surprise. They were friends, but the swiftness with which he responded to that caught her off guard. “The idea of you struggling is going to be like a physical ailment to her now. Wake up, dude. Your sister is _Ella Baratheon_ , you better get used to her taking care of you. We all had to. You don't stand a chance and you don't want to. Everyone should be lucky enough to suffer the fate of being loved by her.”

 


	12. I ain't in no hurry

 

 

 

“This can _never_ happen again.”

 

“That’s what you said last time, and the time before that…”

 

“Well I mean it this time. If anyone knew…”

 

“Alright, I’ll remember that when you crawl in my bed at 3 am…”

 

“Shireen, I’m _serious_ ,” Theon said as she tossed him his sweater.

 

“And so am I. You scared the living daylights out of me last night. I gave you that key for emergencies. _My_ emergencies,” she said, putting her hands on her slim hips and scowling at him.

 

Somehow, she managed to make a flannel pajama set look sexy and it was honestly infuriating how she woke out of a deep slumber completely gorgeous. He had gotten very used to what she looked like in the morning, because ever since that day in his bed, he sought her out as often as he could, needing her to sleep properly.

 

Of course, they only slept. Sure, there was that one _almost_ kiss after Sansa’s ‘Sangria Saturday’ party, but Theon Greyjoy had gone from a man who didn’t cuddle to a man who cuddled as often as humanly possible. He actually found himself not trying to sleep with other girls, because he’d never crawl in Shireen’s bed after being with someone else and he craved the warm cocoon of her fluffy duvet and the feel of her slender body in his arms.

 

That was what he was worried about. People finding out that he’d given up a chance with _Margery fucking Tyrell_ of all people all to crawl into the bed of a girl who wouldn’t even sleep with him. Not that he really tried to sleep with her either, he needed her too much. It was kind of annoying actually.

 

“You gave me that key so I’d do exactly what I did last night,” he said cockily, “You want me in your bed, Shireen Baratheon, and you know it.”

 

“I’m honestly surprised your ego didn’t shove me out of it,” she said with a smirk but she jumped in his arms anyway.

 

He held her, she always smelled a bit like salt air, as though the jagged coasts of Dragonstone had imprinted themselves in her very pores, his hand finding her silky brown hair as he squeezed her tight. He _loved_ their goodbye hugs, when her feet never touched the ground and the tightness of her arms told him she really didn’t want him to leave.

 

“See you at Hurley’s later?” she asked him when he finally set her down.

 

“See you then, beautiful,” he said with a stroke to her scar.

 

****

 

Robb was trying very hard to study for his politics exam and his girlfriend was making it very difficult.

 

He was used to her distracting him from studying, whether she attempted to or not. Sometimes she tried to, because she was bored, or because she really wanted him, or any other number of reasons. Sometimes she just distracted him because she was _Ella_ and her very existence made him useless. But today, it wasn’t even really her, but rather a certain technology of hers that was distracting him.

 

He sighed as her phone buzzed for the fourteenth time that hour. Ella didn’t even look at it, she simply sighed and pressed Ignore, before turning the page of her book of sonnets.

 

“Ella, why don’t you just answer it?” he asked her for the second time. The first she’d smiled at him and kissed him, but this time she doesn’t look at him either.

 

“Sorry, I’ll turn it on silent,” she says, fiddling with her phone briefly.

 

Within moments, the phone lit up again. Robb picked it up because it was driving him insane.

 

“It’s your brother Tommen,” he said, showing her the phone.

 

She took it from his hands, a smile lighting her face, “Hi Tommy,” she said, but then her smile died and she hung up.

 

“Ella,” he said with a sigh.

 

“Yes, Robb?” she asked him sweetly, as though she had no idea what he could want to talk about.

 

“Why don’t you just talk to her?” he asks. He knows that her relationship with her mother is complicated. She had alluded to it on more than one occasion, and on a particularly drunk night Shireen had sat him down and told him her Top 5 Cersei Lannister moments.

 

“Why don’t _you_ talk to her?” she said sarcastically, but just then the phone lit up again and Robb didn’t even think, he just answered it.

 

“Myrcella Baratheon’s phone this is Robb speaking,” he answered politely, ignoring Ella’s horrified face.

 

“What have you _done with my daughter!?_ ” a shrill voice demanded.

 

“I haven’t done anything, she’s perfectly fine Mrs. Baratheon. She just can’t come to the phone right now, can I give her a message?” he asks with a gulp.

 

“Yes. You can tell her that when she decides to stop being a spoiled brat she can come home to her _real_ family, but until then, she’s on her own,” the venomous women says.

 

“She will _never_ be on her own. Goodbye, Mrs. Baratheon,” he says, angrily hanging up.

 

Ella simply smiles at him, “And what did you think of Mumsie?”

 

“She’s a horrible woman. What did she mean?” he asks her, crossing and sitting up on his bed next to her.

 

“I confronted her about Gendry and it turns out she’s known about him the whole time. In fact, it wasn’t _our father_ that stopped his mother from getting work, it was my mother. She’s been keeping tabs on them his whole life… and she just… she let me go my _whole life_ without knowing about a brother. She let him struggle on his own… she’s a hateful, _hateful_ woman Robb. Anyway… I told her that I would be giving up my share of the Baratheon trust to him and that I wouldn’t set foot in Casterly Rock while she was there and now she’s working to have my grandfather withhold my portion of the Lannister inheritance until I ‘see sense and remember who my real family is’.”

 

“Oh Ella…” he says. She says it all matter of fact, except of course the part about Gendry struggling, and when he pulls her into his arms she comes willingly but shows no signs of breaking.

 

“I’m never going back there, Robb. They’re toxic. I’ll stay here and work for the summer. I don’t want their money.”

 

“You’ll do no such thing,” he says. “You’ll come to the lake with us. Let me show you what it is to be a part of a real family, please.”

 

“No. I don’t want to intrude on your time with your siblings and your parents shouldn’t be forced to tolerate an entirely new teenager for three months.”

 

“My siblings like you better than they like me and my mother is _dying_ to meet you. Seriously she asks about you every time she calls. Please Ella. Come away with us, please.”

 

“I don’t know… it’s such a lovely offer but…” she trailed off, and he wasn’t sure if she really didn’t want to intrude, or maybe if she really didn’t want to come. His family could be _a lot_ , and the stories he and Sansa told all the time probably made them seem completely intimidating to someone having issues with their own family.

 

“Okay, what about this. Let’s go to Winterfell next weekend. We’ll get a big group so it won’t be an intense _meeting thing,_ it’ll just be an off-campus weekend. Yes?”

 

“Why are you always saving me, Robb Stark,” she asks, tilting back so she can look at him.

 

To him, she gets more beautiful every day. Every act of kindness, every giggle, every soft touch that tells him how much she loves him makes her more beautiful than her perfect skin, golden hair, or lithe body ever could.

 

He touches his fingertips to his cheek, the pad of his thumb finding the dimple that hides there. It’s what he always does to reassure himself that she’s real, that she is safe and whole and close enough to touch.

 

“Self-preservation,” he says honestly, “I need you, Ella Baratheon. My world depends on you being okay.”

 

“I lover you,” she says with a small smile.

 

“I lover you too.”

 

***

 

“Promise, promise?” she asks Jon as he sidles up next to her in the booth.

 

“Pinky promise no take backs,” he vows, hooking his pinkie through hers.

 

She and Robb had just told him, Sansa and Theon about the trip to Winterfell next weekend, and Jon had promised that he would give her the how-tos of the Stark household.

 

“You’re an awfully good chap,” she says affectionately.

 

“Well I have a vested interested, Doe. I need another _sane_ person at Stark gatherings. And yes, that shows you how very bleak it is when you are the sane person I turn to,” he says with his crinkly smile.

 

“Shireen Baratheon, you beautiful bastard, get over here!” Robb shouted across the bar to her cousin.

Shireen’s face lit up when she saw them and she sidled in on the other side of Robb, who immediately pulled her to him and pushed his drink in front of her.

 

“Hi Bobby,” Ella overheard her say and smiled. Those two _adored_ each other and she knew how much Shireen had always wanted a big brother. Now she had three of them, when you counted Theon and Jon. Not to mention Gendry who reluctantly (at first, and now enthusiastically) had joined a group chat with them.

 

She turned back to Jon and Sansa (Theon was hitting on some tall red-haired girl at the bar with very generous…personalities) and took up a discussion of whether or not karaoke would be happening that evening.

 

“That’s not what I asked, Stark,” she overheard Shireen say in a bratty voice. Shireen was as sweet as it got, but if she skipped lunch she could get a little snippy.

 

Hoping to divert any bad energy, Ella turned back to them and said, “What’s this, Snappy?”

 

She was surprised to see Robb and Shireen in a bit of a stand-off.

 

“Robb doesn’t think I’m hot,” Shireen said with a pout that made Ella bite the inside of her cheek to hide her smile. That would _not_ go over well.

 

“Robbert?” Ella asked him, her arm resting on his shoulder.

 

“Hey! I told her she was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen!” Robb said defensively, “Aren’t I _not_ supposed to think other girls are hot?” he finished dejectedly.

 

“That isn’t what I _asked_ ,” Shireen said with a roll of her eyes.

 

“You’re walking sex and have been since day 1, what’s this about?” Ella asked.

 

Shireen’s eyes shifted towards the bar, to where Theon and that girl were getting almost obscenely close, and she saw her cousin’s eyes appraise the girl’s low cut blouse and skin tight jeans.

 

“Lately… I don’t know I just… I’m wondering if maybe I don’t have the look guys want,” Shireen said with a pout. Ella’s heart broke. Not only was Shireen really one of the most beautiful girls ever (her and Sansa were tied in Ella’s opinion), she had so much _more_ to offer than just a beautiful face. She was sweet, intelligent, so witty it was almost frightening, and the most fun person to do anything with.

 

“Are you an idiot?” Robb asked her. “I mean, seriously, did you like fall down or something? You’re a _dime piece baby_ ,” he said with a grin, “And one of the coolest girls I know. Any guy that doesn’t want you is dumb as dirt.”

 

_And that, Robb Stark, is why I love you._

Shireen looked halfway convinced, so Ella said, “Yeah you can’t base it off of _Theon Greyjoy_ of all people,” she said with a roll of her eyes. As much as she’d grown to like Theon he was a total pig when it came to women, “You’re it, honey.” Shireen nodded at her, and Robb was still looking at her appraisingly, so Ella simply said, “Now, are you going to help me choose a song for karaoke?”

 

“Oh, Ella no…” Robb said with a groan.

 

“Oh yes, oh very very much yes.”

 

***

 

“Next up is – Ella Baraaaaatheon,” the MC shouted into the microphone.

 

Ella kissed his cheek and hopped up from the row of seats they’d been in. The girls had insisted on moving towards the stage when the karaoke started, and they’d sat through some pretty hilarious (and one amazing) renditions.

 

Ella hopped up on the stage, causing a row of drunk guys to start hollering already even though she hadn’t started. Jon caught his eye and Robb nodded, _yes I’m ready if necessary_. He hated that he thought that way, he knew it wasn’t normal, but Jon had already gotten one bloody nose when a guy had _bit_ Ella’s ass at a concert they went to together.

 

She took the microphone and said, “This one’s for you, Robb Stark,” pointing her finger at him. He felt himself blush all the way down to his toes, that was never a good sign. She had the confidence of someone who had always been beautiful and charming, so she never really got embarrassed. She also _loved_ embarrassing him and she was really, really good at it.

 

Just then the first notes of _Body Like a Back Road_ came on and Robb ducked his head as Ella started singing. She in all honesty had a beautiful voice, not that you needed it for the song, and she was a natural performer, already egging the crowd on to sing the familiar words. She was shaking her hips to the beat as she walked down the short steps to come into the crowd.

 

“THAT’S MY WIFE,” Sansa shouted to the delight of the crowd.

 

Ella walked right over to him and pulled him up, gesturing to him obscenely as she sang _“The way she fit in them blue jeans, she don’t need no belt,”_ and started dancing her way down his body. _How does she look sexy when she is being a complete dork?_ “ _But I can turn ‘em inside out, I don’t need no help…”_

Mercifully she pushed him back in his seat and moved on, making Theon sing the chorus with her. Even Jon joined in, which really said something.

 

The reaction when she was finished was an immediate request for an encore but Ella smiled and shook her head, setting the microphone down and walking off with a simple bow.

 

She came down and had the grace to look chagrined.

 

“I’m sorry, baby,” she said with a shy grin. Though she clearly wasn’t sorry at all.

 

He pulled her into his lap, “Oh you should be,” he said nuzzling her cheek. “You’ll pay for it later…”

 

“Promise?” she asked him with a wicked glimmer in her eye.

 

“Pinky promise no take backs.”

 

***

 

“Come on, sweetling, we’ve got to get you home,” Ella said as she wrapped her arm around her cousin’s waist. The two girls were the same height and equally slender, but Theon still saw Ella nearly buckle as Shireen threw her arm around her and giggled into her ear.

 

“Mymymycella,” Shireen said, giving her cousin a sloppy kiss on the cheek and making Ella smile in spite of herself.

 

He had hardly talked to Shireen all night, spending most of it trying _not_ to talk to her. One of the usual girls in his rotation, Ros had been there and proven a bountiful distraction. She was supposed to be coming by his apartment later that night.

 

So he hadn’t really seen how much Shireen had to drink, though clearly it had been a lot. The Baratheon girls rarely over indulged, but they both had the incredible ability to be adorable when they did, so no one really tried to stop them from drinking even if they should.

 

“Yes, I’m yours, just don’t tell Robb,” Ella said, causing her boyfriend to growl at her before picking Shireen’s tiny form up in his arms.

 

“I fucking told you I could fly,” Shireen said to no one in particular.

 

“Did she drink rubbing alcohol or something?” Theon asked them, inadvertently getting in Ella’s face, now a little worried that this was more than just a bit too drunk.

 

Ella held her hand up in front of her, and he took a step back, because she really didn’t deserve it, and she said, “She was all about the whiskey tonight, my friend. We’ll see you tomorrow, k?”

 

“No!” he said and the three of them all looked at him incredulously. “Uh… no need for you and Robb to go out of your way, I’ll take her back.”

 

“No-“ Ella started, giving him an incredulous look, which she really couldn’t be blamed for.

 

“Yes!” Shireen shouted, “I want Theon, where’s ma Theon?”

 

He went to go grab Shireen from Robb’s arms when Ella stopped him with a feather light hand on his chest.

 

“Theon…” she started. Her eyes were wary, he knew she loved Shireen more than life itself and everything she’d ever been taught had told her not to let a drunk girl go off with a notorious womanizer.

 

“Seriously El? How big of a dick do you think I am?” he asked her. In spite of himself, he was hurt.

 

“Ella, it’s fine,” Robb said, and the two seemed to have a silent conversation with their eyes, before Ella nodded.

 

“Just make sure she drinks some water, okay?” Ella asked him as Robb transferred Shireen into his arms.

 

“Okay,” he said and nodded at Robb before heading in the direction of the girls’ dorm.

 

The walk back proved to be a bit of a struggle, mostly because Shireen insisted on walking once they were halfway there and then insisted he dance with her, but finally he got her into the room, and she had moved from comatose drunk to giggly drunk.

 

She pulled off her sweater and he had to summon all of the best parts of himself and turn away, going into her drawers to grab out a pajama set for her. He ended up having to help get it on her, and by the time he was finished they were so tangled that when she jumped back onto her bed, she pulled him with her.

 

He landed on top of her and held himself up, afraid he’d crush her, but her grip was vice like.

 

“I can be sexy, you know?” she asked him genuinely. _Oh I know, beautiful._

“Of course you can,” he said, still trying to extricate himself.

 

“Don’t agree with me! Not when you don’t want me…” she said, pushing him away now.

 

_Okay, what the fuck?_

“You coulda been my first Mr. Greyjoy,” _fuck fuck fuck_ “But you don’t want me at all.”

 

With that she promptly fell asleep, leaving Theon to wonder exactly what just happened.

 

Somehow he falls asleep as well, and he wakes up hearing a groan so deep it feels like it rumbles in his own chest.

 

“Shireen? Are you okay?” he asked her, hovering above her. It was light outside and he was cursing himself for not having drawn the curtains.

 

“That depends, is there any whiskey left in the Western Hemisphere?” she asked as she turned around and burrowed into his chest.

 

“’Fraid not, beautiful,” he said stroking her hair.

 

“What did I do?” she asked him. _You confused the flying fuck out of me is what you did. Oh and you may or may not have told me that you’re a virgin and that you wanted me to be your first. Don’t think about that. Stop thinking about that._

“You didn’t do anything,” he assured her, because really she hadn’t. She grumbled against him, wiggling her body until her arm was under his and her lips were against his neck. She was intoxicating, even now, hungover and he was losing his grip on reality after what she’d been saying last night so he said, “Though I’m pretty sure Ella thinks I lured you away to have my way with you…”

 

She peered up at him incredulously, “What are you talking about?”

 

_Here goes nothing._

“I mean that she very much wanted to take you home and you very much wanted me to take you home. I don’t think she trusts me,” he said, smoothing the worried lines of her brow.

 

“Should she?” Shireen asks.

 

“In general, no,” he says honestly, “But with you…”

 

“And what makes me so different?” she says, annoyed now. “Because my boobs are actually _able_ to fit inside of a shirt?”

 

He smirks down at her because first of all, she was funny, and second of all, because she wanted him and she had just told him so.

 

“Um, no. Though trust me, very impressed and a bit disappointed that you have that ability…” he teased her causing her to shove him. He caught her hand and held it above her head, hovering over her. Her blue eyes widened and her mouth fell into a perfect O and he felt himself harden at her proximity and the reaction she had to his, “You, Shireen Baratheon, are the sexiest girl I’ve ever known. But you’re different because I will be here whenever, however you want me to be. If you want to be just friends, I will be your best friend. If you want me to fuck your brains out, I will make you come so many times you can’t see straight. I will be where you want me to be, who you want me to be, when you want me to be. I am at your beck and fucking call, so you tell me. What is it that you want?”

 

“You really think I’m sexy?” she asked him with a wicked smile.

 

After that, he couldn’t really help but kiss it off of her.


	13. Guess who's coming to dinner...

 

 

“Doing alright, my love?” Robb asked her as they piled out of the van taxi they’d taken from the train station.

 

“Peachy keen, professor,” she said with a smile as he wrapped his arm around her. “How about you? When is the last time you introduced a girl to your family?”

 

“Sophmore year. Jeyne. Did _not_ go well if I remember correctly…” Jon said with a roguish smile from behind them.

 

Robb turned to scowl at him as Sansa laughed, “Oh my god, right! Didn’t Arya short sheet her bed?”

 

“Can you blame her? Jeyne told her that she shouldn’t play hockey because guys wouldn’t want to date her. She then offered to teach her _tennis_ because it was more ladylike…” Theon recalled with a smirk.

 

Ella kept silent, because there was nothing she could say on the matter of Robb’s ex-girlfriend that wouldn’t seem catty but Robb growled at them, before a smile came to his face, “Oh my god do you remember when Rickon fed her that cake he baked with actual mud? I was in the doghouse for _weeks_.”

 

“Okay, _less_ peachy now…” Ella said, wiping her hands on her navy blue pea coat.

 

“Don’t be silly, who could not love youuu?” Shireen asked her looping her arm through hers. Ella smiled and kissed her cheek.

 

Theon burst through them, draping an arm around each of their shoulders, “You know girls… I think it’s high time we introduce the concept of kissing cousins…”

 

Both her and Shireen elbowed him in the stomach before pushing away so they could wrap their arms around each others’ waists. Ella turned back to him and said, “Don’t be silly, Greyjoy… we only kiss in private,” making Shireen giggle as her head dropped to her shoulder.

 

“San don’t, you have a key,” Robb said with a roll of his eyes.

 

“Oh come on, Robbert, this is so much more fun…” Sansa said then pulled a contraption out of her pocket. She blew it and all of a sudden the sound of dogs barking erupted from seemingly every corner within the gorgeous stone country house.

 

Just then an elegant older woman opened the door. All elegance abandoned her when she saw Robb who stood at the front of the group. “Baby,” she said. _Her first baby, her first boy._

 

“Mom!” he exclaimed with a whoop and crossed the short distance to pick her up in his arms as though she were Arya.

 

“Robb put me down! What will these girls think of us?” his mother said with a laugh and Robb acquiesced with a roll of his eyes.

 

She and Shireen, who still had their arms around one another shared a glance and she knew that Shireen’s thoughts mirrored her own. _That we’ve never known a mother who called their child anything other than their full name. That we’ve never seen a child so happy to see their mother. That this may be heaven._

Mrs. Stark pulled Sansa to her too, tucking her hair behind her ears so it was out of her face, before Jon, as though he couldn’t help himself, wrapped his arms around both of them making mother and daughter alike blush.

 

When she pulled out of their embrace she stroked Theon’s cheek, “Are you behaving yourself?”

 

“No,” he said smugly.

 

“Good,” she said with a glimmer causing him to laugh and kiss her cheek.

 

She then turned to Shireen and Ella who had been standing a bit apart to give her time to greet her children and the boys who may as well have been.

 

“You must be the Baratheon beauties I keep hearing about,” she said kindly.

 

“Mrs. Stark, I’m Ella Baratheon, and this is Shireen Baratheon, it’s such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for having us in your home,” Ella said, extending her hand.

 

“My dear, I’m afraid in this house we hug,” she said stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Ella. It was odd to hug an older woman, she never hugged her own mother and Shireen’s was no more loving, but Robb smiled at her encouragingly so Ella wrapped her arms around Mrs. Stark, who smelled like fresh baked bread and soap, as though she were constantly trying to feed someone or clean something. Which was probably true. “And please, call me Catelyn,” she said as she moved away, still holding onto Ella’s arms, “My children have told me so much about you, you are so very welcome here,” then she turned to Shireen and extended her hand so she was holding both of them, “As are you Shireen. Welcome to Winterfell.”

 

As though the entire house had been waiting for this moment, Starks and dogs pile out the front door and soon there are so many arms and so much laughter that Ella forgets what she had ever been nervous about.

 

One stands out to her though and she can’t help but breathe out, “Gendry.”

 

He crosses to her, and he seemed almost a giant to her now as he picks her and Shireen up at the same time. They hold onto him tightly.

 

“Why did I miss you two so much?” he asks them.

 

“How could you not?” Shireen asks, just as Ella says, “We missed you too big brother.”

 

***

 

There was nothing quite like a Stark family dinner. Having grown up with just his father, who was withdrawn and reclusive after the death of his mother when he was five, Jon had always sought the comforting noise of the Stark household.

 

Theon too, who had older brothers, considered all of the Stark boys closer kin than his own and they had been constant fixtures growing up. So that was why as they all settled at the Stark’s enormous mahogany dining room table, they all for the most part, settled into their familiar seats. Of course, they gave way for the inclusion of the Baratheons, Shireen, Ella and Gendry.

 

Gendry after months of dating Arya was at home already, though he could see Ella and Shireen who flanked Ned on either side holding themselves as though a string was drawing them towards the ceiling. He knew they came from money, just like he and the Starks did, but theirs was a different kind of money, synonymous with courtesies and dissent in equal measure.

 

They were adaptable though, these girls, and he could see them relaxing with every laugh. They had already charmed Ned and he had waggled a finger at each of them over the course of the evening, which was widely considered to be his stamp of approval.

 

“So,” Ned said with a clap of his hands, “Who can we count on for the lake this summer?” he asked, making it clear that all those in attendance were welcome. _Thank god for the Starks._

Jon, Theon and all of the Stark children raised their hands immediately, while Shireen, Ella and Gendry all shifted uncomfortably.

 

“Gendry,” Arya demanded, causing Jon to bite the inside of his cheek.

 

“I’m sorry, my lady,” he said from his seat at a safe distance across the table from her where he sat next to Ella, “I uh, just have to hear back on a job out there but if I get it I can come. That is if it’s alright.”

 

“Of course it’s alright, darling,” Catelyn said warmly.

 

“Girls?” Ned asks Ella and Shireen, who seemed to be having a conversation with their eyes across the table from one another.

 

“That is such a lovely offer, but I think I might stay on campus this summer,” Ella says.

 

“Are you taking a class dear?” Ned asks curiously, obviously ignoring the looks Sansa, Robb and Catelyn are all throwing his way. He loved Ned, who was the best man he’d ever known, but he could be a right Northern fool when given the opportunity.

 

“You’re not going to Highgarden again with your family?” Gendry asks curiously.

 

He had never seen Ella at a loss for words before. He always took comfort in her self-assurance, the way she could calm everyone around her with her immediate sense of right and wrong, quick wit and her easy grace. It was probably why he felt like he wanted to hop across the table and shield her body with his own.

 

“My dear, I think I know a bit about what’s going on…” Catelyn starts, blatantly ignoring Robb. Ella turns to her with a polite smile but a wariness in her eyes, “And, I really think that you should come to the lake with us. You can get a job like Gendry if you’d like, but I hate to think of you on campus all summer on your own. I also think there is a good chance we’ll lose Robb this summer if you do. Please, dear, just because you’re having issues with your family doesn’t mean you should be alone.”

 

“What issues with your family? Why would _you_ need to work?” Gendry asks her.

 

Ella looks at him and says reassuringly, “It’s nothing, it was just a thought…”

 

“Ella…” Gendry starts and the look of warning she shoots him must click something in his brain because he slams his fist on the table, _Gods he’s strong,_ Jon thinks as the chandelier rattles above them. “No. No! You will not fight with your family over me. I am your older brother, I have to _protect_ you. Not alienate you from everyone you love.”

 

Ella looked at him and Jon could tell what she was thinking. _I’m sitting at the table with everyone I love._ He knows, because it’s what he would be thinking in her shoes and they were so similar it was eerie sometimes.

 

“Gendry, could we possibly talk about this later? Mr. and Mrs. Stark, it is such a kind offer and Shireen and I will think about it. We could use a summer lakeside, hmm?” she says asking Shireen gaily, pleading with her cousin to join in.

 

“Could you possibly not hide behind your courtesies for a fucking moment?” Gendry says. _Woah, they became siblings really quickly. I’ve seen Robb hit the nail on the head as quick as that with Sansa. Always earned him that look too._

Just then a piece of bread hits Gendry in the face, “Hey asshat, lay off,” Arya says.

 

“I’m trying to _help_ her,” Gendry says.

 

Jon loses his cool then, “Really? Because it really fucking seems like you’re attacking her.”

 

“Jon, language!” Catelyn says, though he can tell her heart isn’t in it.

 

“The next person that upsets Ella loses dessert privileges!” Rickon shouts from his mother’s side and everyone stops and stares at the 8 year old.

 

Ned nods at his youngest sagely, “Seems fair.”

 

“Catelyn, these carrots are delicious! Tell me, did you use harissa?” Ella asks her conspiratorially (as though produce was something to conspire about).

 

“Yes, dear, I did and a hint of…” Catelyn continues with a smile, as though she is grateful to Ella for moving the evening along. As though she regrets bringing it up terribly. As though her son had chosen well. As though she’ll have her loyalty and protection until the day she dies.

 

Jon knows that look, the one that says _Oh you poor darling, you sit right there and I’ll take good care of you. How could a parent not love a child such as you?_

Yes, he knew it very well indeed.

 

***

 

“The game, children, is Chandelier,” Theon said with a flourish, as though he was a master of ceremonies.

 

“We know the game, dipshit, we’ve all played it,” Jon said with a sigh.

 

“Not _all_ of us,” Arya said, practically vibrating with excitement at being included.

 

“Thank you, she-wolf,” Theon said.

 

As Theon explained the game, Sansa considered that she really should have changed out of her cream top. This game got _messy_ , especially when the boys got rowdy and competitive which was every time.

 

Thinking harder on that, and not caring about missing the first round, she wandered up the basement steps through her house up to her room.

 

“Ella, I said I was sorry,” she heard Robb say.

 

“I know you did, the problem is you said _a lot more than that_ ,” Ella said.

 

“She’s my mom!” Robb said.

 

“Keep your voice down please,” Ella said in a whisper shout. Then with a steady breath she says, “I know that. Did it ever occur to you that I might not want your mother to think I’m some baggage filled girl? God, Robb. Talk about a bad first impression!”

 

“Are you insane? She loves you. My dad loves you. Rickon asked to _duel_ me for your hand in marriage. What is going on with you?” he asked.

 

“What is going on with me is that it’s all well and good that you and your family are as close as you are. I love that. It’s one of my favorite things about you. But not everyone is like that. And not everyone has to be,” Ella said and Sansa’s heart broke.

 

“Ella… I just… I just want you to be okay,” Robb said dejectedly.

 

“I know, and I am okay, alright? I’m always okay. But I’d be a lot better if you would _stop_ trying to save me and just accept me for who I am…” and with that Ella must have stormed out because she walked into the hall coming face to face with Sansa.

 

“Oh my god, El!” Sansa said loudly, as though she were drunk already, “Theon is making us play _chandelier_. Come with me to my room and let’s grab some comfy clothes. There is no way I’m letting this silk be ruined because Theon and Jon feel like getting in a pissing contest!”

 

It was a testament to who Ella was that she recovered quickly and smiled brightly, “Oh god. Find me the rattiest t shirt you have…and possibly rain boots.”

 

Sansa giggled and wrapped her arm around her friend. Ella was right, she was always okay, but more often than not, she was just about as good as it got.

 

***

 

 _Don’t kiss her, don’t kiss her._ Theon thought that about once every 30 seconds.

 

He thought about it on the train ride to Winterfell when Shireen sat next to him and fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, even as he avoided Ella’s curious glances and Robb’s clenched jaw. His best friend certainly seemed to know _something_ was up.

 

He thought about it when she sat across the table from him, as sweet as it got as she told a story about her father’s best friend Davos teaching her how to sail as a child.

 

He thought about it when he ran into her in the hallway when everyone else had gone downstairs. And ignored it. Twice. Because Shireen Baratheon in a dark hallway was too irresistible to deny.

 

He thought about it during Chandelier when she pinched his butt to distract him. And again when they were partners in beer pong and she gave him a ridiculous pep talk full of incorrect sports analogies and purposefully distorted clichés. And even now as she sat on the couch next to Gendry, quietly berating him for attacking Ella at dinner.

 

“Lay off beautiful,” he said, cutting in. Because this was getting boring and he would prefer her attention to be on him, even if he couldn’t kiss her. “He said he was sorry.”

 

Shireen glared at him, and oh god did he want to kiss that pout right off of her, “Stay out of this, Greyjoy. This is _Baratheon_ business.”

 

He smirked at her and her gaze fell to his lips. _Don’t kiss her, even if she wants you to_. They stared at each other so long that Gendry finally said, “Alright well while you guys do this, I’m going to get another drink.” Then he got off the couch. “Fucking weirdos,” he mumbled under his breath causing Shireen to giggle.

 

“You can’t kiss me,” she says quietly.

 

“I _know_ ,” he says with a twinge of annoyance in his voice.

 

“But I want you to,” she says conspiratorially.

 

“I know that too, beautiful,” he says with a smile. Because a girl like her wanting him to kiss her was good enough.

 

***

 

Robb had had too much to drink. He couldn’t help it. Not when Ella was mad at him.

 

The truly annoying thing about dating Ella was that she was just so _Ella_. Which meant, even when she was angry with him, and embarrassed, she never showed it. So she was bright and charming and so fun to be around with everyone else, apart from him.

 

She had enticed Jon into a handstand context, and then promptly found him an icepack when he hit his eye on a beer bottle when he toppled over after doing one for a full minute. She and Arya had absolutely destroyed Theon and Shireen in beer pong, giggling all the while. She and Sansa had taught them all a new drinking game and had been so adorable as they acted all of the movements that it was physically painful.

 

The only one who was also shivering in the shade away from her glorious sunshine was Gendry, and he looked just about as put out about it as he was. Probably why as the antics were dwindling down, he brought Robb a glass of whiskey and settled on the couch with him.

 

“I’m sorry,” Gendry said by way of greeting.

 

“Don’t apologize to me,” Robb said off-handedly.

 

“Ella won’t _let_ me apologize. God she’s icy when she wants to be, huh?” Gendry said, mimicking Robb’s thoughts entirely.

 

“Yeah, but only because when she’s around you it’s like…” Robb started but cut himself off, not wanting a repeat of the teasing he had gotten from Jon and Theon, especially from her brother.

 

“Sunshine. She’s fucking sunshine,” Gendry said as if it was the most annoying thing in the world.

 

Robb held his glass up to cheers him and Gendry clinked his with a sigh.

 

“Go, go, go!” the subject of their discussion shouted then, jumping up and down. Shireen and Theon had apparently entered into a dance battle, and they were making complete asses out of themselves, much to the delight of all their friends.

 

“Something’s going on with those two,” Gendry said.

 

“I know. The question is what,” Robb said with a sigh. He adored Shireen, loved her like a sister, and Theon Greyjoy is not a guy he’d want with his sister, no matter how much he loved him.

 

“Don’t think it’s much of a question…” Gendry said cynically, “Look I know he’s your best friend and everything but… Shireen is…”

 

_Sweet, and innocent, and maybe the only girl in the whole world capable of changing him for the better._

“Don’t worry,” Robb said, though he knew it was impossible. “If he hurts her, I’ll crazy murder him.”

 

“You’ll have to let me help,” Gendry says, and the two cheers again.

 

They were brothers now, twice over, because it didn’t matter that they’d only been dating Ella and Arya for a few months, their love for those girls linked them irrevocably. Robb and Gendry, as stubborn as they both could be, never bothered fighting the inevitable, so they settled into brotherhood wordlessly and without hesitation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, next chapter (which may be posted later tonight) is basically all smut...


	14. Bump in the night...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They just can't seem to stay in their own beds...

 

“ _Be quiet, do you want to wake the whole house?_ ” Sansa whisper-shouted at him as they fumbled in the darkness to get their clothes off.

 

“Says the girl whose about to be _screaming_ my name,” Jon said smugly as he pulled her to him.

 

Sansa wrapped her legs and arms around him like a koala bear and whined, “Jonnn, tell me you love me.”

 

“You are _such_ a brat,” he chuckles, because really, she was shameless.

 

“Jon…” she says more sternly.

 

“Fine. I love you Sansa Stark. I love you with my whole heart, my whole mind, my whole body. I love your brattiness and your long legs and your good heart, and I _love_ making you scream,” he says, thrusting into her.

 

She doesn’t scream, per se, but she lets out a guttural moan that causes him to pause for a moment, sure that someone must have heard it. When he doesn’t hear Ned or Robb coming to crazy murder him for defiling the Rose of Winterfell he takes up a rhythm. She is so tight and so wet and she feels like she was tailor made for him.

 

She isn’t gentle, not that he’d want her to be, and her long, manicured nails find his back, drawing blood as he rolls his hips into her.

 

“ _Yes, Jon, just like that_ ,” she whimpers.

 

He had always known how to please her. He wasn’t sure exactly _how,_ I mean, it wasn’t like he had so much experience before her, but from the very first night he had seemed to know almost instinctually how to do the one thing he wanted to do every waking moment: get her off. He relished in it, the power he had over her, it excited him more than anything ever had and tried not to worry too much about it. He was more animal than man when he was with her, she drew a wildness out of him that none before her had inspired.

 

“I know how you like it, love, tell me how _much_ you like it. _Beg for it baby_ ,” he said through gritted teeth.

 

“So good…you feel so good,” she said, and he ducked his head to lick and nip the creamy column of her neck, his teeth finding her ear lobe. “So good, my love, please don’t stop, never stop… fuck I’m yours always, always yours…”

 

“That’s right Sansa,” he said, setting a punishing pace, knowing that neither of them had long, “Mine, all mine. You and your perfect cunt are _mine_.”

 

“ _Jon!_ ” she exclaimed with a cry and he felt her walls tighten around her as she practically convulsed as the waves crashed down around her. The sound she made when she came was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard and he was helpless against it, against her, and he came with a final shudder shortly after.

 

He pulled her to him, spooning her from behind. Their bodies always fit like puzzle pieces and he drew the covers up to their chin, kissing her shoulder gently.

 

“I love you, baby,” he sighed.

 

“Me and my perfect cunt?” she joked.

 

“You and your perfect everything,” he said, nuzzling against her.

 

If he was a wolf while they fucked, everywhere else he was her devoted lapdog, loyal and protective and full of unconditional love. She took her hand in his and held it to the soft flesh of her breast, and he fell asleep with her heart beating in his ears.

 

***

 

“And what exactly do you think you’re doing here?” he asked her.

 

“I figured I would sneak into _your_ bedroom for a change,” Shireen said, plopping herself on the bed in her navy blue silk pajama set and fuzzy white slippers.

 

He rolled so he was hovering over her, supporting himself on one elbow, while the other hand held onto her waist.

 

“Are we boring already? Had to mix it up?” he asked her with a grin.

 

She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, you sneaking into my bedroom is _so_ passe,” she jokes, then she reaches up and pushes his hair back from his face tentatively, as though he might deny her anything at this point and smiles sadly, “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

 

Theon sighed, because he wasn’t going to. He wanted to, god did he want to. But there were too many people around, too much a possibility of getting caught. They hadn’t discussed keeping this a secret, but since nobody had ever known about their sleeping arrangements prior, they had simply continued on in wordless agreement. He knew there was more to it, for both of them. Frankly, Theon feared he would make a mess of things the moment anyone else found out. He wanted to stay in a bubble with her for as long as he could.

 

He strokes her scar, “I wouldn’t, but I’m glad you did.”

 

Her blue eyes look up at him through her impossibly long lashes and she lifts her head off the bed to touch her lips to his. He had kissed a lot of girls. A lot of girls. But none compared to her. She kissed him like she might like to do it forever, like she was uncovering new languages as his lips molded to hers.

 

He hooked his arm underneath her and pulled her up. She was so slim, and would be frighteningly so if she hadn’t almost severed his arm when he tried to take a bite of her cheeseburger, that it was no strain to hold her to him at all. She rose willingly, her small hands holding onto his arms as she opened her mouth to let his tongue move against hers.

 

Slowly, her hands started moving down his arms, until they got to the waistband of his sweatpants. She was starting to move them down when he covered her hand with his, stopping her.

 

“Shireen,” he got out, though he wasn’t sure how, he was so turned on he thought he might be going blind.

 

“Hmm?” she mumbled lazily, her eyes blinking open.

 

“We can’t…” he says. He’d never said that before. He didn’t like it, which was how he knew it must be the right thing.

 

“What happened to making me come so many times I can’t see straight?” she teased him.

 

He chuckled, stroking her face, “You think I need my cock for that?” he asked her smugly.

 

She rolled her eyes, “Well yeah… I’m a virgin, not an _idiot_ ,” she said stubbornly. Fuck she was beautiful when she was annoyed with him.

 

He kissed her, a smile on his face, because she was just so _her_.

 

“Not an idiot, beautiful, but an innocent…” he said. Then he got up on his knees, straddling her and holding her face in both of his hands, “Do you trust me?” he asked her with a roguish grin.

 

He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until she nodded and he let out a sigh of relief. Though he felt something nagging at him as well, a sense of responsibility he had _never_ felt before. This girl had powers he didn’t understand, and he hadn’t even slept with her yet.

 

He kissed her once more before moving down her body, pulling down her pajama pants. Her pink cotton panties followed and he took a moment to admire the sight before him. He moved so he was in between her legs and said, looking up into her bewildered face, “I’m going to do what I think you’ll like, and you tell me if I’m right or not. Deal?”

 

She nodded and he smiled at her once more before allowing his tongue to taste her. He was hard now to the point of painful because she was perfect. Just like he had hoped and feared she would be.

 

He pressed his tongue against her nub and her hips arched off the bed. He smiled against her, doing it again, before allowing his tongue to swirl over her. When he felt her wet to the point of indecent he pushed a finger into her and had to stifle a groan. She was the tightest thing he’d ever felt and she let out a little sigh when he entered her.

 

He’d been with screamers before, girls who called him Daddy, girls who begged him, but he’d never heard a sexier sound than that little sigh.

 

He started moving his finger in and out of her as his tongue wandered all over her, until he was sure she could handle another and he let a second finger join the first.

 

“Theon?” she breathed, her hand finding the one that rested on her waist.

 

 _Close, beautiful, you’re almost there,_ he thought, but didn’t say. Instead he let his fingers intertwine with hers, as her hips raised off the bed against and he pressed against her more forcefully, sensing her now, her body telling him everything.

 

He sucked on her nub and she went rigid, an aching sigh escaping her lips as she collapsed back onto the bed. He held himself there for a moment, determined to gain control of himself. He was afraid what he’d do if he looked up at her right now, flushed and spent. Instead, he pulled her panties and her pajamas back up, until he was sure he could trust himself.

 

“How are you doing, beautiful?” he asked her, pushing stray pieces of hair off her lovely face.

 

“I can’t see straight,” she said with a lazy smile.

 

“Your eyes are closed, genius,” he said with a chuckle.

 

“Details, Greyjoy,” she said and opened her eyes. _Don’t look at me like that_ , he thought, _I’m not a boy a girl like you should look at like that. But oh how sweet it is that you are._ “Can I stay with you?”

 

He’d heard that questions many times before. He said yes, more often than not, because he loved morning sex. But now he said it because he couldn’t bear to let her go.

 

He pulled her into his arms, her leg hitching over his as her arm wormed its way under his and she pressed her lips to his neck.

 

“You’re not as bad as people think you are, are you Greyjoy?” she asked him.

 

“Oh contraire, Baratheon. I’m exactly as bad as everyone thinks I am,” he says, just as he had when they’d first slept in the same bed.

 

“You’re not,” she says, nuzzling her nose against him, “And you don’t want people to know it. But I do.”

 

***

 

Robb was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if he’d have to physically restrain himself from wandering down the hall to where Ella slept.

 

She was angry at him, and that was all well and good, because she was right. He couldn’t stop trying to fix her, even though she needed less fixing than any person he’d ever met. The real person he wanted to fix was her mother, but that was a different story.

 

In truth, he hadn’t even hesitated telling his own mother. She had been so heartbroken when he told her, already knowing half the story from Gendry, and she’d made him promise to convince Ella to come away with them for the summer, determined to smother her with love and quiet parental guidance. It was what he wanted anyway, because he wasn’t really sure how he would survive a summer without her.

 

He never could have known that it would have come out like that. Okay, well he _could_ have known, but he hadn’t thought about it. All he thought about was Ella and wanting to solve whatever problem came her way. Sometimes he really was just a Northern fool like his father.

 

Grey Wind’s head perked when his door opened, letting in the light from the hall as a familiar golden head peaked in, closing the door behind her silently and crossing over to the bed, plopping a kiss on Grey Wind’s head as she passed.

 

“Ella?” he asked her. He hardly had time to breathe before she caught his lips in her own, straddling him and pulling his face up to hers. He breaks away from her, his hands on her own, “Ella,” he pants, his forehead against hers, “I thought you were angry with me…”

 

“I _am_ angry with you, but I can’t stand being down the hall from you when I want to be in your arms,” she says desperately fumbling with his shirt. “I don’t want to be mad at you tonight, _please_.”

 

A smarter man may have made her stop, told her they should talk about it, that this wasn’t the way to deal with anything, but he had never savored being a fool more than when he pulled her face back down to his, claiming her lips.

 

She was in a rush, and as his hands wandered down feeling the silk of her nightgown he was too, his hips lifting off of the bed so that she might pull down his pajama pants, as he hurriedly shoved her nightgown up her thighs.

 

After months of being together, they didn’t need light or hands or anything as he poised himself at her entrance and she sank down on him.

 

“ _Ella_ ,” he breathed out.

 

“Just like that, Robb, always like that,” she murmured, repeating herself from the first time they’d been together. It had been the easiest request to fulfill in the world, saying her name like it was his religion.

 

He sat up now truly, his arm wrapping around her from behind, holding onto her waist as his other hand found her hair, tugging it back so he could kiss her neck and collarbone. She shivered against him as she rocked back and forth, and the feel of her goosebumps in contrast to the heat of where their bodies joined was dizzying.

 

“Oh my love,” he whispered against her skin, her silky tresses caressing his hand as her sweet warmth enveloped him over and over. “Whatever you want, Ella, always.”

 

“ _Robb_ ,” she sighed, her thumb tracing his lip as she pressed her forehead to his. Her other arm wrapped around his neck, holding onto him for support and their breath was warm on one another’s faces. He held her steady, thrusting up to meet her and she let out a whimper as she kissed him slowly, breaking away to let out a delicate little cry when her body rubbed against his just so.

 

“Tell me, sweet girl, tell me my beauty, tell me you’re mine, please,” he begged her. He could make her forget that she was angry, he could make her forgive him, he could make it all better he knew it.

 

“Yours? Of course I’m yours _…_ ” she breathes out, as her back arches and her head falls back, rocking against him in earnest, “ _You’re in my bones_.”

 

_And you’re in my blood, sweet girl. You are the bright beating heart of my world._

 

“Ella, my only love, Ella, Ella, _Ella_ ,” he groans out in madness now.

 

He bucks up into her hard, too hard and she comes apart and he fears her neck may snap, but her walls tighten around him and her entire body shudders. Her head falls against his shoulder and she clings to him, and he had never known his heart was capable of such things and he let’s go with a cry of her name.

 

 


	15. The games we play

 

She woke up in Robb's arms, and legs for that matter. He was wrapped around her in every possible way and she snuggled into him. She was still frustrated with him. He was such a  _fixer_  and all he wanted for her to be was happy, but he didn't understand that she didn't and had never relied on her family for that. She was still embarrassed that now his entire family and all of their friends knew there was a rift in her family tree, but she knew deep down that he had only wanted to help and the root of the issue was that he loved her, so she really couldn't be angry. 

 

She kissed his neck and chin and she felt him stirring against her, so she kissed his cheek and attempted to wiggle out of his embrace. The house was still quiet and she had just enough time to get back to her room before anyone noticed where she'd slept. She didn't need to add  _harlot_ to the list of indiscretions his parents probably had against her.

 

"Where do you think you're going?" he mumbled.

 

"Back to my room, to make my sheets look slept in and then for a run..." she said. She wanted to clear her head and more importantly, explore the beautiful Northern landscape. 

 

"Do you want help rumpling those sheets?" he asked her wolfishly, despite still being half asleep.

 

"You are  _incorrigible_ ," she said.  _And I love you._

 

"I love you too," he mumbled against her skin, allowing her to extricate herself. She rose from the bed and slipped her nightgown back on, "Take Grey Wind with you on your run," he says into his pillow, clearly intent on not yet facing the day.

 

"Trying to get out of giving him a run yourself, hmm?" she asked him teasingly.

 

" _No_ ," he said, smiling into his pillow, "He'll keep you safe and make sure you don't get lost." 

 

"Quite a dog he must be," Ella says, petting the adorable lab where he lay on the floor.

 

"You have no idea." 

 

"Alright then, come on handsome," she said and to her surprise, Grey Wind rose immediately as though he knew that he  _was_ handsome and it was only right of her to notice. 

 

After sneaking back to the room and changing into running clothes she and Grey Wind headed outside. Though it was officially Spring, you wouldn't know it from the chill in the air and the snow on the ground. 

 

"Where to?" Ella asked Grey Wind and he took off into a run, looking back at her to make sure she was following. 

 

It turns out he was the ideal running companion. He kept pace with her, though something told her he could have gone much faster if he wanted to, and took her on a long scenic loop. It was a truly beautiful part of the country with an open, austere quality to it that reminded her, though it was quite different, of Shireen's home in Dragonstone. 

 

When they had to be nearing 5 miles, her ideal stopping point, Grey Wind lead her through a clearing that brought them to the back of the house. 

 

"You are  _so_ getting some bacon, handsome..." she said as she slowed into a walk and the lab looked up at her happily.  _Quite a dog indeed._

 

She entered the house as quietly as she could and was surprised to see Catelyn in the kitchen. 

 

"Good morning, my dear," she said with a kind smile.

 

"Good morning, Catelyn," she said shyly. Grey Wind pressed against her side and she pat his head in thanks. 

 

"I wanted to apologize to you. I should have known what Gendry's reaction would have been last night... I love that boy but by god does he have a temper..." 

 

"He gets it from our father," Ella says with a small smile, remembering a glass table her father had accidentally shattered when Joffrey had gotten his ear pierced. "Please don't apologize, you were only being kind." 

 

"Would you take some advice from a mother who can't help herself?" Catelyn asks her. Ella nods. "If my understanding is correct, you are an immensely unique girl with an incredibly unoriginal story. You aren't the first privileged girl who fell out with her family and you won't be the last. The thing that differentiates you is that when you had everything, you offered it to Gendry, and when you lost everything, you didn't ask for it back. I have no doubt that you could make it on your own, the way Robb and Sansa talk about you there isn't anything you  _can't_ do, but don't be afraid to rely on people. Just because your family isn't worthy of your trust and dependence doesn't mean that no one is. Gendry has great big shoulders, use them. Robb would pull out his beating heart for you if you asked. Don't be afraid to need people. I think you'll find that when you depend on the right sort of people, it makes you strong, not weak.” She said purposefully, then as though remembering something she added, “Now please tell me I haven't  _completely_ ruined my son's chances with the girl of his dreams..."

 

Ella let out a giggle, though she felt a bit more like crying. "You haven't... quite the opposite. You're a  _really_ good mom."

 

"I've had a lot of practice," Catelyn says with a small laugh. Ella walked around the kitchen island and hesitantly reached out and hugged her. She felt her comforting embrace come around her. "Oh my dear, I fear us Starks are rubbing off on you..." 

 

"I hope so," Ella said, "I really hope so." 

 

Catelyn's arms tightened around her and held her for a long time. In the back of her mind, she wondered what kind of person she'd be if she'd always been held like this.

 

When they pulled apart, Catelyn looked at her appraisingly. "Now tell me, is my son treating you the way you ought to be?"

 

"Better," Ella said with a blush. 

 

"You really love him back, don't you?" Catelyn asked her curiously.

 

"I really do. Is that okay?" she asked. She knew that the Starks hadn’t liked Jeyne. That she was either considered too weak or too snobby, that they didn’t like the way Robb distanced himself when he was with her. All she wanted was for them to approve of her.

 

Catelyn looks at her and strokes her cheek, "Better."

 

***

 

Sansa woke up on top of Jon. If she was crushing him, he showed no signs of caring as he held her to him. 

 

She moved to extricate herself and he growled at her, bringing a smile to her lips despite the early hour and the headache she could feel approaching. 

 

"I have to go back to  _my_ bed," Sansa said as she moved out of his arms and he fell to his stomach.

 

"This is  _your_ bed," Jon grumbled. He was very adamant that everything of his was hers. Especially, she found, when it pertained to beds. 

 

"Not according to my father. Or Robb. Or  _Arya_." Sansa said.

 

"Get out! Get out!" Jon said faux-dramatically. She kissed his cheek and rolled over him, digging her elbow into his back on purpose until he was chuckling in pain like the true  _weirdo_ he was. 

 

She dressed quickly and tiptoed into the hall. As much as they joked about it, she really wouldn't like running into her father or Robb sneaking out of Jon's room, or heaven forbid, poor little Rickon. 

 

She nearly bumped into Gendry who was walking equally quietly, his shoulders raised as though  _that_ might make him quieter. 

 

"Gendry?" she asked with a quirk of her eyebrow. "What are  _you_ doing here so early in the morning?" she said. She adored him but really couldn't resist making him squirm a little bit. 

 

"I um... forgot something....last night..." he said.

 

"Really? In Arya's bedroom? Make sure to tell Robb that..." she said with a smirk.

 

"Well uh... _wait_ didn't you just come out of  _Jon's_ bedroom? Maybe we can tell Robb at the same time." he said to her, crossing his arms and giving her a cat that caught the canary smile. 

 

She stares at him, and he stares at her. She hadn't realized what a worthy opponent he was. Robb and Jon for all their intelligence were no match for her, and she for all of hers was no match for Arya. 

 

"Let's never discuss this with anyone ever again?" she asks finally.

 

"Deal." he said and continued tiptoeing down the hallway.

 

She made it safely to her room and opened the door, just as Theon's door was opening. She turned out of habit and that is when she saw Theon Greyjoy nuzzle Shireen Baratheon's nose with his, before planting a soft, lingering kiss on her lips.

 

"See you soon, beautiful," he said to her and Sansa hurried back into her room, closing the door shortly so she wouldn't be seen.

 

Her headache was gone, but it was replaced by a low sinking feeling in her gut. 

 

***

 

“Have you seen Ella?” Robb asked Theon as he came into the kitchen.

 

“What, is your tracking device broken?” Theon joked and Robb rolled his eyes. _Okay, so I’m kind of obsessed with her. Get over it._

“I think I saw her heading to the study,” Bran said and Robb thanked him. _His true brother._

He walked down the long hall to his dad’s study. They called it his dad’s, or rather his dad called it his, but they all used it. It held their family library as well as a few couches and desks where they had all worked on one paper or another through the years.

 

 _“And then, cried the big bad wolf, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blooooow your house down!”_ he heard Ella’s girlish voice.

 

He walked into the study and was surprised to find his dad standing there as well, looking at Ella and Rickon on the couch, Grey Wind and Shaggydog flanking them. His little brother had all but crawled in her lap, deciding instead to hang over her shoulder so he could look at the pictures.

 

“Why would you make a house out of _straw_?” Rickon asked her.

 

“Hay, what’s wrong with straw?” Ella joked and his dad let out a chortle. Ella and Rickon both turned and Ella smiled shyly.

 

“The big bad wolf is going to get the three little pigs!” Rickon said excitedly.

 

“Is that so?” his dad asked. “I’m not sure I’ve _heard_ this one before,” his father lied, “Would you finish it, Ella?”

 

As Ella continued reading, she forgot they were there and soon she was speaking dramatically, making Rickon practice his best wolf breath. As she neared the end, his dad looked at him and said, “I love you more than my own life. But if you screw this up, boy, we’re kicking you out and keeping her.”

 

Robb smiled because they saw it too. They had never liked Jeyne. Even now, he couldn’t dislike her. They just hadn’t worked. But his family held a grudge against her that he couldn’t understand. He looked at the way Rickon babbled excitedly as he told Ella a story, so exuberant to get the words out and impress her with his intelligence or bravery or good humor that he stumbled all over his words, and the way Grey Wind rested his chin on her thigh like she was _his_ and he knew. He had been right all along, he had been right to want her, to love her as he did.

 

“Hey little wolf,” Robb said to Rickon, “Can I steal your girlfriend for a bit?”

 

“Fine. But not _too_ long. You get her all the time,” Rickon said, and he blushed when Ella kissed his cheek, promising hot cocoa later on.

 

“So now you have me, Robb Stark,” she said when they were alone, “What do you intend to do with me?”

 

_Well now I’m imaging a whole new slew of things I could do with you…_

“Will you come with me somewhere?” he asks her.

 

“Anywhere,” she says with that lazy smile of hers. He couldn’t help kissing her dimple when it appeared and he pulled her up off the couch.

 

They walked out into the cold and Ella hopped on his back, “I already _got_ my exercise.”

 

“And don’t forget, you ran too,” he says and she smacks him playfully.

 

After a while he set her down and took her hand in his. They got to a clearing with a large white weir tree with vibrant red leaves all year long. There was a small pool of water in front of it and it and the reflection bathed the entire area in an otherworldly glow.

 

“This is my favorite place in the world,” he confessed. He had never brought Jeyne here, he hadn’t wanted to share it. This was his place, his and his family’s. This is where his father had come when his brother had died. Where Sansa had come after her first break up. It was where he and Jon had sworn an oath of brotherhood.

 

“You’ve brought me back in time,” she says breathlessly. She looks around her, “You can see now why they called this the New World, you could forget anything existed outside of it. It is absolution itself.”

 

“I love you,” he said, because it was exactly what he wanted her to feel. It was exactly what _he_ felt. She could pretend to like it, but she couldn’t pretend _that._

 

“Is it sacrilege if you kiss me here?” she asks him.

 

“If it is, I welcome damnation,” he said and kissed her. Their noses were cold and there were tears freezing on her eyelashes but he would have stayed in that wood forever if she’d asked him to.

 

***

 

“Why would we do this exactly?” Sansa asked.

 

“Because it’s _fun_ ,” Grenn said. Ned and Catelyn, being the true unflappable parents that they were, had decided to allow the elder Stark children to have a party. It was only in the basement, but considering their basement was bigger than most houses in the country, it had gotten a little rowdy.

 

“For _you_ ,” Robb said, “But half of us are related,” he said, looking around at Sansa and Arya, and then at Shireen, Gendry and Ella.

 

“Fine, if you land on a _sibling_ of yours, you get to kiss whoever you want,” Theon said.

 

They were in college and they were playing spin the bottle. Jon wasn’t sure exactly how that happened but he was pretty sure Theon was to blame.

 

“I’ll go first,” Jeyne Poole, Sansa’s best friend from high school said. She very obviously did _not_ look at Theon, though from her low cut top and winged eyeliner, he had a feeling she had revenge on the mind. He couldn’t quite blame her, Theon had courted her for weeks only to dump her when she wouldn’t put out. _Ass._

She spun it and it landed on Grenn, who very eagerly crossed the table to kiss her. It was quick and a bit clumsy and they both pulled apart blushing, just like in middle school.

 

“Your turn, sunshine,” Theon said to Ella who was on Jeyne’s left.

 

Ella spun it and it landed on him. Both of them blushed furiously and she looked curiously at Robb. “Just get on with it,” he said in annoyance. Jon looked at Sansa who put her chin in her palm and gave him a smirk, “Yeah get on with it…” when he cocked his eyebrow at her she shrugged, “What? You’re hot, she’s _smokin’,_ I think I’d rather like to see it.”

 

He willed Ella to come to him because he was now almost dangerously hard. It was bad enough that he’d be kissing Ella, who apart from Sansa was the most gorgeous girl he’d ever known, but to hear that Sansa _wanted_ him to kiss her was enough to throw him over the edge.

 

Mercifully, Ella was a sweetheart and came around the table, wiggling her finger playfully at him. “Okay, do your worst Jon Snow,” she said with a smile.

 

If he was going to do it, he was going to do it, so he took her and dipped her, cupping the back of her head and kissing her softly. Her lips felt good against his and she smelled like jasmine and he liked the feeling of her body in his hands, but _none_ of that compared to how he felt with Sansa. Once the group started hooting and hollering he let her back up where she dramatically fanned herself before returning to her seat.

 

“Okay, that was like _movie_ quality,” Roslin Frey said.

 

“I think Robb needs a turn after that,” Theon joked and Jon smirked at Robb roguishly. He was just _too_ easy to piss off when it came to her that it had been impossible to resist.

 

It was almost as though Robb had been practicing because he spun it harshly and of course, it landed on Ella.

 

“No fair!” Jeyne complained and Ella giggled. Robb though, had something to prove and he pulled her against him, capturing her lips in his as though he were determined to erase the memory of every other kiss. Jon smiled as Ella _melted_ against him, her fingers coming up to graze the scruff of his chin. Robb had to be insane to be jealous of anyone when it came to her, she was so obviously his, but Jon knew he was. Love brought out madness in men like them.

 

When Robb finally released her, he had to sit her back down because she was a little unsteady from the stars in her eyes and Shireen took the bottle next. She spun it and it landed on Ella _again_.

 

“Okay is the table like dipped or something?” Ella asks, lowering her head so she can examine it.

 

“Let’s determine that _after_ you kiss,” Theon said wolfishly.

 

“The-“ Ella started but then her cousin grabbed her face in her hands and kissed her.

 

It was a soft kiss, no tongue but Ella gripped Shireen’s wrists as though she had thought to pull away and then couldn’t and it was the most innocent and tantalizing thing he’d ever seen.

 

When they pulled apart Shireen said smugly, “Alright now tell me I’m not a better kisser than those two.”

 

Ella giggled, taking a sip of her drink to get out of answering. The game went on and on, Grenn had to kiss Gendry. Twice. Jeyne finally got her kiss from Robb and Ella whooped and hollered with the rest of them. Jon had had to watch Theon kiss Sansa, but was relieved to see that Theon was just as horrified by it as she was so it hadn’t lasted long. Arya, too, in the end had gotten a kiss from Ella.

 

Theon took a turn and the bottle landed on Shireen. Jon watched the two look nervously at each other. He had suspected that Theon had a crush on Shireen, and he knew they were friends, but he was surprised when it was Shireen who walked over to Theon.

 

“Come on Greyjoy,” she said eagerly, “Let’s give ‘em a show.”

 

He expected Theon to laugh and say something cocky, but he looked at her intently. Jon had never seen him look at anyone like that. He brushed the hair out of her face and tilted her chin up to him, stroking it softly as though he’d done it many times before and kissed her. This was the first kiss that Jon felt _wrong_ watching. It was too sweet, to intimate. It was the kind of kiss you share with someone you’re just starting to fall in love with, when everything is new and terrifying.

 

He looked up and he realized he wasn’t the only one to notice, because Ella and Gendry had identical faces of horror.


	16. Family

 

He knew he had made a mistake the moment he did it. It was too risky, to kiss her like that in front of all of them. But she'd walked over to him, her gorgeous face with that teasing expression and he couldn't  _not_ , not when she wanted him to. 

 

When they pulled apart he cleared his throat. As a rule he was  _never_ speechless, even when he should be but he was at a loss for how to properly divert the attention.

 

He looked up and the first eyes he met were Gendry's. He averted them quickly, but then they fell on Ella's next and he thought Gendry may be the safer bet.

 

"How long?" Ella asked. But she wasn't asking him she was asking Shireen.

 

"El..." Shireen trailed off. To say that Ella was glaring at her cousin would be a lie. She looked instead like she wanted to cover her body with her own and shield her from all harm. Theon couldn't even blame her. 

 

"May I speak with you for a minute?" Ella asked him. To her credit, she asked him kindly, as though afraid he might say no.

 

"El?" Shireen asked.

 

"It's okay Shmy, I promise," Ella said, smiling at her. She was a couple of months older than Shireen but in that moment she could have been believed to be her older sister. It was the kind of look he'd seen Sansa give Arya countless times.

 

"Lead the way, Sunshine," Theon said, because regardless of what she had to say to him, this was Ella and he couldn't be rude to her. 

 

"Wait for me," Gendry said and Ella gave her brother a look of warning as the three of them went upstairs to the study. 

 

"You know I adore you..." Ella started.  _By god that silver spoon was wedged deep when she was born._

 

"If I can quote Gendry, can you not hide behind your courtesies for a minute?" he asked her.

 

"What she means to say is, you're our friend but she's our blood and your track record isn't exactly inspiring," Gendry says. 

 

Ella turns and puts her hands on her hips, "Don't you think you've gotten in  _enough_ trouble telling me how to feel?"

 

Gendry has the nerve to look ashamed, "Yeah I wanted to talk to you about last night..."

 

"Guys?" Theon asks.

 

"Right, sorry. What I  _actually_ meant is that I've seen you with other girls, and you've never looked at a single one of them the way you just looked at Shireen. I can see it, you care about her, probably more than you know. But somewhere along the road enough people told you that you were an asshole that you started to believe it, and if we're all being honest with ourselves, I think you actually fooled yourself into believing that you  _enjoyed_ it. That ends now, okay? Give this a proper chance. Not just because Shireen deserves someone to look at her the way you just did, which she does, more than anyone, but also because you owe it to yourself."

 

That was just about the last thing he expected her to say. He expected her to forbid him from seeing her cousin, not that she’d really have the right to but given how much her opinion meant to Shireen she may as well have it. He hadn’t expected her to care about _him_ at all, but she was looking at him like his happiness was more dear to her than her own.

 

"What if I hurt her?" Theon asked, because it was the thing that terrified him the most. That he would do something impulsive and careless, because that's who he was. 

 

"Then Robb will  _crazy murder_ you, and I'll help," Gendry interjected. Ella peered up at him curiously and Gendry held up his hands saying, "His words, not mine."

 

"The easiest way not to hurt someone is to think about them before you do something. You'll find 9 times out of 10 that tells you what the right thing is," Ella said.

 

"Thanks El. I promise, I  _want_ to do right by her," Theon said, because he had no right to expect such grace, and it was important that she knew that he held himself not just accountable to Shireen now, but to her as well. 

 

"That's a good start," Ella said and started walking away from them, before turning over her shoulder and saying "Oh, and Greyjoy? If you  _do_ hurt her, Robb and Gendry won't even get a chance. And I take kickboxing  just so you know...  _See you boys later_."

 

"How is she simultaneously kind and terrifying all at once?" Theon asked Gendry, because really, it defied logic. 

 

"Because she's Ella Baratheon, savior of the hopeless and the damned."

 

***

 

“Just a _few_ more minutes,” Robb said to her as he tried to pull her back to bed.

 

“That, my love, is what you said a half hour ago,” she said, wiggling out of his grasp.

 

They were in her guest room as she got ready for the day. It was Sunday and as she’d gone to bed just after her conversation with Theon, she was feeling a bit brighter than most of her companions.

She went over to the mirror to straighten her clothes and Robb came up behind her.

 

“ _Don’t_ ” she said.

 

“Don’t what?” he asked her innocently. He pushed her hair to the side and kissed down her neck.

 

“Don’t do _that_ ,” she whined. His hand tugged on the tie of her wrap shirt, pulling it open in one go, as his other let his fingers trail over her breast.

 

“I can’t help it,” he said, his eyes on hers in the mirror.

 

She was about to turn around to kiss him when she heard a deep voice say, “Ella?” as he knocked on her door.

 

“ _Fuck_ ” she whispered much to Robb’s amusement as she hurried to retie her top. “Um, just a second Gendry!” she said, but she had waited too long and Gendry walked in to find her straightening her top as Robb pulled on his own shirt.

 

“Seriously does no one in this house sleep where they are supposed to?” he grumbled.

 

Ella saw Robb about to ask what he meant by that, and since Ella had a pretty good idea she grabbed her jacket and said “Alright, let’s go,” nearly shoving Gendry out of the room.

 

They headed out to his pick up truck and she picked up his phone to search for a song to play. She was still annoyed with him, really annoyed, and she was determined to make him _sweat_ a little. It was her prerogative as a little sister, after all, and she had used up all of her maturity in her conversation with Theon last night.

 

“El-“ he started.

 

“Tut, tut, tut… you promised me _sweet potato home fries,_ if you recall. When I have _those_ we talk. Now, let’s just sit back and relax to the calming sounds of TLC,” she said and put No Scrubs on.

 

To her surprise, Gendry knew every word to the song just like she did, so they showed up at the diner a little chummier than she had anticipated. _But really, what girl can resist 90s girl-power jams?_

“I’m sorry,” he said once she had taken the first bite of the best home fries she ever had.

 

“I’m having a really hard time remembering what I was annoyed with you about. Can you ship these to me at school?” she asked him as she dug in.

 

He grinned at her, “I think I may be dumb to remind you, but you’re annoyed with me because I semi-caused a scene at the Starks family dinner on Friday night.”

 

She set her fork down and narrowed her eyes at him, “Oh right, that. I know you just meant well, but… we haven’t known each other that long and something you may not know about me is that I am quite private. The Lannisters are… a complicated bunch and… well there are some things you should know that I didn’t want to have to address in front of the Starks.”

 

He takes a sip of coffee and nods, “I get it. I promise to at least _try_ not to do it again. Now what should I know?”

 

“The first thing you should know is that our father never actively tried to hurt your mother. I’m not saying he was a saint, far from it. But it was actually my mother. She’s… well she’s a horrible woman. She’s prideful and vindictive and she considers anyone except her children, her father and her twin brother an enemy. She is the one who blackballed your mother. I’m so sorry to reopen all of that for you but…I think it’s important for you to know that despite the fact that he should have tried to take care of you and your mother, our father was guilty of weakness and carelessness, but did not _want_ to hurt you.”

 

He sat there and absorbed it. She had never thought they looked alike until that moment, but she could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he slowly processed everything and she knew she looked the same when she did.

 

“Your home fries are getting cold,” he finally said. When she had taken a few bites he said, “So what else do I need to know?”

 

“You need to know that you’re my family now. You and Shireen. You are all of it. And I don’t take kindly to those that try to hurt my family. I told my mother that I was giving you the Baratheon trust and she has decided that I don’t deserve the Lannister one if I can’t show loyalty. I have told her that I would be very happy not to have it. Now you know everything and _your_ home fries are getting cold.”

 

“You’re taking the Baratheon money.”

 

“No I’m not.”

 

“Yes you are.”

 

“Something tells me this could go on for days. I _chose_ this, Gendry. I have had their money my entire life but you never had a choice. You never got what you deserved and it’s time you do.”

 

“Ella… We’re arguing over nothing. Have you _seen_ that trust? There is enough money in there that neither of us could spend it in five lifetimes. If we take what we need to support ourselves through school and live comfortably, hell _more_ than comfortably, we will still have enough that our great-great-great grandchildren don’t need to work a day in their lives. I’m your only family? Well you’re mine. I’m new to it, but I’m your big brother and I will take care of you even if your stubbornness _kills_ me. We split it 50/50 or I don’t take a dime.”

 

She had a big brother her whole life. Joffrey. Never had he shown any inkling towards wanting to take care of her. He had liked to tease her, try to make her look bad in front of her grandfather (who was shrewd enough to see through it), but take care of her? _What would it be like to let him?_

 

“Fine but I’m paying for breakfast, let’s charge one last thing to Mumsie, shall we?” she finally said.

 

“Excuse me, Sarah?” Gendry said, turning to their waitress, “We’re going to need some more home fries.”

 

***

 

“Would you let me come with you?” Sansa asked him as he got dressed.

 

He was slightly hungover and irritable, he hadn’t slept well. He had been in a funk all morning and had been practically growling as he pulled on his clothes. When she asked that he stopped short.

 

“You want to come?” he asked her curiously.

 

“Of course I do, but… only if that’s okay with you,” she said as she came over to him, tucking an errant curl behind his ear.

 

He grabbed her hand and kissed her wrist, “Come on. She’ll love it.”

 

They didn’t talk much on the drive over, but Sansa held his hand and he felt more at peace than he had for a long time. She’d insisted on getting flowers, something he rarely did anymore, and he held them gently in one hand as he lead Sansa down the familiar path.

 

When they got to a small grey tombstone he shuffled nervously. He had never really come here for _this_ with someone else. His father had never liked to visit and it had become something he hadn’t ever shared with anyone, not even Robb.

 

“I um… like to talk to her?” he said like it was a question. Sansa just squeezed his arm and smiled at him encouragingly.

 

“Hi Mom… I’m sorry that it’s been a while… it’s the first time I’ve been home this semester. Sansa’s here… I uh… finally convinced her to go out with me. Now she’s obsessed with me,” he joked, earning him a playful pinch from Sansa. “Anyway… I love her like mad, but you already know that. She brought you these flowers. I told her not to, but she insisted. She’s stubborn, just like everyone says you were. So I’m going away with the Starks again for the summer, but I’ll stop in again before we go. I love you, Mom and miss you every day.”

 

“ _Can I say something?”_ Sansa whispered in his ear. Jon looked at her and nodded. “Hi Mrs. Snow, it’s Sansa…Stark. I just wanted to say that… I love your son. I love him with my whole heart and I’m so sorry that you didn’t get to see the man that he became. You should see the way he takes care of people, the way he takes care of me. You’d be so proud. I promise one of these days I’ll be worthy of him…but until then, I promise to love him beyond reason or sense or anything.”

 

Jon hadn’t cried in a long time. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he cried. But he couldn’t get over this girl, this incredible, wonderful girl who he’d known his whole life and had only just recently really _seen._ He knew what other people saw in her: beauty, charm, a quick wit and a good family name. But nobody knew, only a few people, her family, Ella, Shireen, Theon really knew what an extraordinary person she was, and he most of all. It still defied reason that she loved him at all, let alone as much as she did.

 

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she wrapped hers around his waist as he kissed her temple. He didn’t say anything, because sometimes it was better not to. So they stood there for a long while and for the first time that year, it felt like spring.


	17. God save the king

Robb rose from bed sluggishly. He had been out until four the night before, and though the clock told him it was eleven now, it mattered not to him. His mouth was dry and he could feel a headache coming on slowly, like he watching an invading army approach from the battlements for a siege.

 

He padded down the hallway of the _children’s wing_ of his family’s lake house, down the back stairs that lead straight to the kitchen.

 

“Your _grace_ ,” Ella said when she saw him, dropping into a low curtsey.

 

“My _king_ ,” Theon said with an exaggerated flourish and a bow.

 

He wanted to ask them what they were talking about, and tell Theon to shut up, but his head was too foggy and his mouth was too dry to let any words out.

 

Sansa had popped her head out from behind the fridge and giggled and Shireen had buried her face against Gendry’s arm as he smirked, shaking his head as he ate his cereal, adding to his confusion.

 

He went to grab a glass of water, gulping it down greedily. He looked at Ella - _when did she get up_? he wondered. She had showered clearly, and her golden hair was darker than usual as it was still damp. She wore little white shorts and a navy blue tank top, and she looked so clean and perfect with her bare feet and sunkissed skin. He went up behind her, burrowing his head into her neck. She smelled like her shampoo and body wash and it made the pain in his head dissipate as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

 

“Uh oh, someone’s feeling sorry for themselves,” she said, stroking his forearm gently.

 

If she was disgusted by the smell of the booze that must be emanating from his pores she didn’t show it as she reached an arm behind her and stroked her hand through his curls.

 

All he wanted to do today was find a shady part of the beach when he could lay his head in her lap as she ran her fingers through her hair just like that. He didn’t want anyone else, except maybe Grey Wind, he just wanted to relish in the soft breeze and the overwhelming comfort that came from being coddled by her.

 

Just then, Jon walked into the room and Sansa slammed the door of the fridge shut and squealed like she was seeing The Beatles for the first time, jumping up and down like he was Elvis or something, “The…the White Wolf!”

 

Jon looked at her with a similar expression that Robb had done only a few moments before, and rubbed his forehead like he was trying to rearrange the parts of his brain that had scattered.

 

He was going to ask what exactly was going on, but then Ella lifted a freshly cooked piece of bacon to his mouth. He bit it greedily and all but moaned against her. He wasn’t so hungover that he didn’t notice the goosebumps that rose on her shoulders when he did, and he thought again how the shady place should really be _quite_ secluded.

 

“Shut. Up,” Arya said as she came into the room. If he and Jon looked worse for the wear then Arya…

 

She walked in slowly, as though retesting how, and her short brown hair was going in any number of directions. He was sure she was wearing shorts as well, but she was wearing an old lacrosse pinny of his that went down almost to her knees and she looked far too young to be in a state such as this.

 

“Oh sweetling,” Ella said tenderly, extricating herself from his grasp. He had to brace himself against the counter, he hadn’t realised how heavily he was leaning on her. He watched as she pulled out one of the chairs at the island and helped ease Arya onto it. “Just sit right here, okay my love?”

 

Arya nodded bleakly. _Where was she going to go?_ and watched blankly as Ella ran up the stairs. She came back down with what seemed to be a wet washcloth and started to tenderly wash Arya’s face with it, removing the raccoon eyes that her eye makeup had caused. Arya sat there willingly, the way Rickon still would when his mother did the same thing to him after a meal.

 

“We’re going to get you sorted,” Ella said to her soothingly. Despite himself, Robb was jealous. He wanted Ella to be cooing around him, he after all, had a headache that felt like it very might be terminal. But then he watched as Ella made a cup of coffee to her exact specifications, and picked out two burnt pieces of a bacon, placing them in front of his sister and he found that he couldn’t be very annoyed by any of it.

 

Arya took a tentative sip of coffee and then leaned her head against Ella, just as he had done moments before.

 

“Never leave me,” Arya begged her. Ella smiled and stroked her hair, “If you ever want to get rid of Robb just let me know. I’ll take care of it.”

 

Ella giggled and even Jon cracked a smile at that, even though he had at some point eased himself onto the floor and laid his cheek against the cool surface of the dishwasher. Arya was not the first of his family members to articulate such a thought and Robb couldn’t find that he blamed them. Ella had stolen all of their hearts, just like she’d stolen his, and he knew that she would not return them easily.

 

“What the bloody hell happened last night?,” Robb asked finally.

 

***

 

“I’m sorry,” he said for the hundredth time.

 

She smiled, turning the page of her book. Robb had been in and out of sleep all afternoon, and she had been devouring a book his father had given her. At Robb’s request they had wandered off on their own and found a secluded, shady part of the beach where she’d never been before.

 

Though she was not nearly as hungover as Robb, Jon or Arya, she still took comfort in the delicate breeze and the sound of the water lapping gently at the shore - and him. She had laid down on a large blanket, using their sweatshirts as a pillow and he had laid down perpendicular to her, resting his head in her lap. The hugged her legs to him loosely and the feel of his soft grip on her calf anchored her in a way that made a calm wash over her.

 

“You should be,” she said, and though she’d hidden her face behind her book, she knew that he would hear the smile in her tone.

 

He eased himself up, pulling the book from her hand. He had his legs astride her and his arms boxed her head in on either side.

 

“Can you forgive me?,” he asked her. She squinted at him and he tickled her, “Forgive me!”

 

She squealed, fighting him off, “Okay, okay, I forgive you…your grace.”

 

He rolled his eyes and buried his face in her chest. He and Jon and Arya were feeling _pretty_ embarrassed about the night before. Though Arya claimed there was no way she had challenged Gendry to a duel and Jon was finding it hard to believe that he howled at the moon butt naked before jumping into the lake. For Robb’s part, he hadn’t quite denied that he had called himself King of the North after winning ten beer pong games in a row, but he was pretty sure that he hadn’t give himself the name.

 

“ _Ella_ ,” he groaned and she took pity on him, weaving her fingers into his soft curls.

 

He hummed against her and she closed her eyes too. The summer had been filled with a neverending series of days like this and had made her positively rotten with happiness.

 

“Have I ever thanked you for bringing me here?,” she asked him softly.

 

He looked up at her with those blue eyes of his, the ones that even when he was hungover and miserable still looked at her with so much love it could make her cry.

 

“Every day this summer,” he answered.

 

“Still not nearly enough,” she said. “Not nearly.”

 

He moved up her body until his face hovered over hers.

 

“There is nothing to thank me for,” he said earnestly. “This is your home now.”

 

“A pretty thing to say,” she said, stroking his cheek, “But this is your home.”

 

He kissed her breast, right over her heart and said, “This is my home. My whole world. Your home is with me Ella, as mine is with you. There is nothing to thank me for.”

 

“You love me so willingly,” she wondered. It was a marvel, it always had been. The moment he had given into the possibility of them he had relinquished his independence, his pride, all of it for her.

 

“I do,” he said, “Because I know that if the only thing I ever do on this earth is love you, it will be enough. I’ve found the center of my world, what sort of fool would I have to be to deny it?”

 

“Promise me,” she said, “That if the day ever comes that you stop loving me-“

 

“It won’t,” he shook his head. “You don’t understand, you can’t see it clearly.”

 

“But if it does. Promise me you won’t hold on for my sake,” she said.

 

It was important to her that she said it. Robb was not the sort of boy that would go back on his word, it would be difficult for him if he ever fell out of love with her to tell her so. He would consider it a failure of his morality, or something as antiquated as that.

 

“I promise,” he said, though he was still shaking her head. _Oh my love, you are so young. You think that to love now is to love always._

 

She couldn’t imagine a world in which she didn’t love Robb, didn’t want him or need him as much as she did in this moment, but she was too much a pragmatist to believe that all love was forever, and had too much self-doubt to believe that one such as him could love her always.

 

“Most girls would ask me to the promise them forever,” he surmised, mirroring her thoughts as he so often did. “Most girls would ask me to look at them always like I’m looking at you right now.”

 

“I would never ask you to promise something out of your control,” she said. “Just love me now, and let forever wait.”

 

He leaned in and kissed her, and even though she was a pragmatist, it felt like forever. He intended it to, she knew. He would never stop trying to convince her that this was always, that she was his eternity.

 

She kissed him back, and maybe it was the delicate breeze or the way the water was lapping gently at the shore or the promises he whispered against her skin, but soon she was naked underneath him and he was moving inside of her like he would do it for the rest of his life.

 

“ _Oh Robb_ ,” she cried weakly.

 

“Believe me,” he said as he pressed a kiss to her shoulder, “Believe me,” as he pressed one behind her ear.

 

 _Believe in me_ , she thought, _that is what he is asking._

 

She pulled him up so that she could kiss him long and slow, until they were crying out into each other’s mouths.

 

“I believe you,” she said, anything to make him keep kissing and loving her like that.

 

It was only later on that she realised she wasn’t pretending.

 

***

 

“No,” Jon and Theon said in unison.

 

“Yes,” Sansa and Shireen returned.

 

“It is just… so… terrible,” Jon argued.

 

“Yeah - it’s awful,” Theon said, less vehemently.

 

Shireen put her hands on her hips and looked up at him. “Who are you trying to fool exactly, Greyjoy? You told me yesterday that you wanted to see it.”

 

Jon looked at him as though he’d been betrayed and said, “Dude.”

 

“It’s her fault man, she made me watch the first two!,” Theon complained, pointing at Shireen accusingly.

 

Shireen rolled her eyes, not apologetic in the least. She walked up to the ticket window and asked for four tickets to see the last portion of a trilogy she and Sansa loved.

 

“You’re buying me popcorn,” Jon grumbled at Sansa.

 

“Whatever baby wants, baby gets,” Sansa cooed at him.

 

“Do you think she’ll choose Traegar?,” Theon whispered in Shireen’s ear as he threw his arm around her shoulders.

 

“No, I’m team Rodger all the way,” she said shaking her head.

 

They went up to the concession stand and ordered. When Sansa pulled out money to pay, Jon looked at her like she was crazy.

 

“What are you doing?,” he asked her.

 

“You said I had to buy you popcorn!,” Sansa argued.

 

“A figure of speech,” Jon said dismissively.

 

Sansa looked to Shireen and Theon for support.

 

“Very common,” Shireen said.

 

“Native to Dorne I believe…,” Theon offered.

 

Sansa and Jon laughed as Sansa rolled her eyes, but she was already stealing popcorn as they wandered into the theater.

 

They all settled in, Theon and Jon on either side of Sansa and Shireen. Jon handed Shireen a small handful of red Sour Patch Kids and Sansa handed Theon their special mix of cherry and vanilla coke.

 

“Do you think we should have waited to see if Ella and Robb wanted to come?,” Shireen asked as the previews started.

 

“No way,” Theon said. “Robb’s not interested in watching anything other than Ella.”

 

“You say that like its a bad thing,” Shireen chided.

 

“It’s not a bad thing,” Sansa said, trying to find the words.

 

She was scared, they all were, of what would happen to him if something went wrong in the relationship. She knew that Ella was just as head over heels for him as he was for her, it was clear, even if she was more afraid to admit it. But there was something that happened to a man like Robb when he found the love of his life.

 

She was saved from having to expand as the opening credits began. Jon took hold of her hand, and when she looked over at him, she knew what he was thinking.

 

_I love you just the same, you are my only ever love._

 

She nodded, lacing her fingers through his and turning to watch the movie. She saw Shireen and Theon curl into one another and she knew that back at the house, Arya and Gendry were falling a little bit more in love, and Ella and Robb finding more happiness in one another than either would have thought possible.

 

_Let us all love until we are lost in it, until we are bare and exposed, until our very life is on the line. Let us give into the absolute abandon of it all. We’re all in very good hands._


End file.
